KRAFTWERK – BRIGHTON CENTRE 30.5.26
Kraftwerk returned to Brighton this evening for the first time in 3,279 days, which is just shy of 9 years! Can’t complain though, as the time before that they had left it 13,152 days (36 years!).
Despite making music for 56 years under the Kraftwerk banner, tonight’s bash is to my knowledge only their fourth concert here. The first was at Brighton Dome on Wednesday 17th September 1975 to coincide with their charting ‘Autobahn’ single and album. They were due to play the same venue in October 1978, in support of their ‘The Man-Machine’ album, but the plug got pulled on the whole tour and I wished that I had saved my concert ticket instead of taking it back to the box office in order to get my money back. They did however return to Brighton Dome on 27th June 1981 in support of their ‘Computer World’ album, and their third jaunt was on 7th June 2017 where they upgraded to the Brighton Centre – Read our account of that night HERE and also our encounter with Kraftwerk last year at the fantastic ‘Forever Now’ festival in Milton Keynes, which is HERE.
We are back at the Brighton Centre this evening as part of their 16 date UK & Ireland ‘Multimedia Tour’, which began back in 2012 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Part performance, part digital installation, the constantly upgraded Kraftwerk live show is an unmissable audio and technological spectacle. Led by founder Ralf Hütter, Kraftwerk successfully deliver selections from across their 8 classic albums: ‘Autobahn’ (1974), ‘Radio-Activity’ (1975), ‘Trans Europe Express’ (1977), ‘The Man-Machine’ (1978), ‘Computer World’ (1981), ‘Techno Pop’ (1986), ‘The Mix’ (1991) & ‘Tour De France’ (2003). Each chosen composition is accompanied by state of the art graphics enhancing the monumental beats and melodies into something that makes for a truly transcendental experience.
For those that don’t know, Kraftwerk was founded by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider (RIP) way back in 1970. They set up their electronic Kling Klang Studio in Düsseldorf, where they conceived and produced all Kraftwerk albums. By the mid 1970’s Kraftwerk had achieved international recognition for their revolutionary electronic soundscapes and their musical experimentation with robotics and other technical innovations. With their visions of the future, Kraftwerk created the soundtrack for the digital age of the 21st century.
Kraftwerk’s compositions, using innovative techniques, synthetic voices and computerised rhythms, have shaped electronic music for the past 50 years. They are simply the greatest electronic act of all time, and their DNA is everywhere – be it The Weeknd, Daft Punk, the Chemical Brothers, Justice, Gorillaz, Depeche Mode or seemingly every act that’s ever picked up a synthesizer, they all owe a debt to Kraftwerk! Thus in 2014 Kraftwerk founders Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider were presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys, and ‘Autobahn’ was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2015. Kraftwerk’s 3-D live show was fully captured on the multi-media 2017 3D The Catalogue release which received the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album, and finally in October, 2021 Kraftwerk were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame!
Tonight at the Brighton Centre we are in the company of Ralf Hütter (vocals, vocoder, synthesizers, keyboards), Henning Schmitz (sound effects, live keyboards), Falk Grieffenhagen (electronic percussion) and Georg Bongartz (live video technician) for just over two hours, from 8:06pm until 10:08pm.
We arrived at the venue in plenty of time in order to check out the impressive array of merch on offer this evening. Suffice to say, my bank balance took a large hit! Purchases in hand I make my way to my seat. This evening it’s an all-seated affair. The background electronic warblings and four moving yellow lined band member representations on the large backing screen hint of what is to come…
The house lights are extinguished and there’s a real buzz in the air. “Meine Damen und Herren, Ladies and Gentlemen Heute abend (aus Deutschland) Die Mensch-Maschine….Kraftwerk” booms around the arena and then the giant screen on the rear of the stage lights up and flashes “12345678, 12345678” in luminous green and the numbers then all appear in varying sizes and zoom towards us. In front of the screen is a long platform with 4 equal sized work stations for the quartet to stand behind. They enter stage right. They are all wearing the same black suits with luminous panels on top. These are the same colour green as the flashing numbers. Leading the way is Ralf who is always on stage right (our left). The spectacular show has started!
This first selection is their much sampled and totally unique electro banger ‘Numbers’ from 1981’s ‘Computer World’ album. It’s their go to opening gambit and one which always works, although the sound here isn’t as loud as it could be. The numbers on the screen then go into overdrive and then the screen switches from green to sunshine yellow and the word “Computerworld” slides in from the right. They’ve segued straight into ‘Computer World’ from the same album. Their suits have switched from green to matching yellow and they segue straight into ‘Computer World 2’. Well these first 9 minutes have gone very well indeed and the packed audience agree with me.
They stick with their ‘Computer World’ album and next perform ‘Home Computer’ with their suits initially in green but switching to rapid alternating blue, purple, red and pink as many accompanying coloured blocks of different sizes flash behind them. They segue into ‘It’s More Fun To Compute’ which is also from ‘Computer World’. Their 1981 tour version of this (including the Brighton Dome concert) was a seriously ramped up speedy version of the track which sadly never saw the light of day, and is for yours truly one of the best ever live version tracks that hasn’t ever been officially released. Back to this evening and it’s worth noting that the sound levels have actually now increased. So much so that the deep bass synth beats and sharp bleeps are rattling my chest…happy days!
For decades Kraftwerk had overlooked the B-side of their epic ‘The Robots’ single, namely the classically-vibed ‘Spacelab’ (both found on 1978’s ‘The Man-Machine’ album) as a live track, but thankfully they have over the past decade seen the error of their ways and included it in their set, along with unique accompanying videos for each outing. The four sides of the giant screen are filled with control panels and in the centre of which is a portal window looking out into space. Then slowly their spacelab makes its way to planet Earth and as it does, a view of the UK hits the screen with a red marker on Brighton, which gets cheers from the crowd. They switch back into space and there’s a classic 1950’s style flying saucer akin to ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ and especially the Jupiter 2 from 1960’s ‘Lost In Space’. This then flies over Brighton Pier and then lands on Brighton Beach in front of the Brighton Centre. Kraftwerk have well a truly arrived and the volume has increased, and this is my favourite video of the set.
Kraftwerk remain with ‘The Man-Machine’ album as they perform its title tune, and in doing so highlight humankind’s increasingly symbiotic relationship with machines. The album’s red, black and white artwork is seriously iconic and based on the work of Russian suprematist El Lissitzky. It’s so revered that it was selected as the front cover shot of ‘1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die’ book. Many Kraftwerk songs get “re-werked” and brought up-to-date down the years, either as releases (‘The Mix’ from 1991, ‘Minimum-Maximum’ from 2005 and ‘3-D The Catalogue’ from 2017) or as live performance versions, up next is one such example, this being ‘Airwaves’ from 1975’s ‘Radio-Activity’ album. At the time, I felt that chronologically that this record should have been made before 1974’s ‘Autobahn’, as a bridge between that and the forgotten first three albums: ‘Kraftwerk’ (1970), ‘Kraftwerk 2’ (1972) and ‘Ralf & Florian’ (1973). ‘Tanzmusik’ from the latter album is arguably more modern than anything on the original ‘Radio-Activity’ album, so it’s not surprising that ‘Airwaves’ now gets the Giorgio Moroder style banging dancebeat treatment. “Wellen schwingen ferne stimmen singen” (“Waves sway, distant voices sing”) blasts across the screen. They segue into ‘Airwaves 2’ aka ‘Tango’ an unreleased number that has had a number of live run-outs across the past 20 years. These two are set highlights, but not the best – they are to come!
‘Electric Café’ from 1986’s ‘Electric Café’ album is next. On 2nd October 2009, the album was remastered and re-released under its original working title, ‘Techno Pop’, a title I much prefer. I can recall hearing the ‘Techno Pop’ name some time before the record finally surfaced under the new title, but the project had been delayed due to Ralf Hütter suffering a cycling accident in mid 1982. More on bicycles shortly! The band members black suits are with blazing white panels throughout this track. A clunk of a car door signifies the commencement of ‘Autobahn’ from the 1974 album of the same name. This is where my journey with the band started. When released, I bought the 7” single and played it to death. I’ve still got it but it crackles badly having been seriously caned. I also purchased the album from Polysound which at the time stood at 15 Gardner Street, Brighton, BN1 1UP. The building is still there but the store is long gone. It’s located opposite the Komedia and it’s the one with the black and white tiled shop entrance step. The ‘Autobahn’ video was updated a while ago and features an interesting selection of cool cars. The main ones being a Volkswagen Beetle with the reg ‘D KR 70’ as in Germany Kraftwerk 1970, the year of their formation, and a Mercedes-Benz, registration ‘D KR 74’ as in the year of the album release. Tonight’s version comes in at a mere 9 minutes. The album version is almost 23 minutes long. Fifty years on and this still sounds out there!
The suits turn pink for the arrival of ‘Computer Love’ from ‘Computer World’, a song which many Coldplay fans will recognise due to them acquiring the beat as a homage on their ‘Talk’ single. The Kraftwerk lyrics sung by Ralf are repeated twice or more throughout the track. Kraftwerk don’t really go big on lyrics, it’s mainly the rhythms, but I guess this is an exception to the rule. There’s the expected crowd cheers for the arrival of their 1981 UK No.1 smash single ‘The Model’ from ‘The Man-Machine’. A tune which interestingly was released 3 years earlier in 1978 as an A-side and then as a B-side on the following ‘Neon Lights’ single, which just goes to show you can’t keep a good song down. Talking of ‘Neon Lights’ this is performed next. It’s one of my most treasured records on the account of it being on 12” luminous vinyl and the fact that it’s my favourite song by anyone ever! This evening’s rendition, which is sadly on the quieter side, does make up for this with Ralf’s vocals sounding more melodic than I’ve ever recall hearing before.
Ralf then addresses the crowd for the first time by giving a very brief statement about Tokyo born Japanese musician, composer and actor Ryuichi Sakamoto, who was one of the founding members of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). ‘Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence’ (1983) marked his debut as both an actor and a film score composer; its main theme was adapted into the single ‘Forbidden Colours’, which became an international hit. Ryuichi died from cancer on 28th March 2023, at the age of 71. Ralf recounted their meeting in 1981, probably at one of the 3 gigs Kraftwerk played in Tokyo in September 1981, and he said that they had remained friends ever since. Ralf added that Ryuichi had in 2012 written Japanese lyrics for Kraftwerk’s ‘Radioactivity’ tune. By way of homage the backing screen remains blank and only the 4 band-members are lit as they take on a short version of ‘Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence’. It’s a quiet sensitive number that reminds me of Gary Numan’s take on Erik Satie’s ‘Trois Gymnopedies (First Movement)’.
Kraftwerk then lead into ‘Geiger Counter’ from 1975’s ‘Radio-Activity’ album and the ‘Fukushima’ version of ‘Radioactivity’ with the Japanese lyrics which musically is a great updated re-working of the original version found on ‘Radio-Activity’. “Tschernobyl, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Hiroshima; Tschernobyl, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Fukushima” blast out at us as well as the words flashing in front of our eyes. There are some serious chest pounding deep electronic bass notes going down here and the volume is cranked up. It’s another of the set highlights! The quartet then get on their bicycles (metaphorically speaking) and whizz into the well-received 10 minute medley of ‘Tour De France’ / ‘Chrono’ / ‘Tour De France Étape 2’ from 2003’s ‘Tour De France Soundtracks’ album. There’s some killer sharp electronic bleeps on offer here and surprisingly this is my second favourite section of the evening.
The highlight for me was up next, in the form of an epic medley of ‘Trans-Europe Express’ / ‘Metal On Metal’ / ‘Abzug’ from 1977’s ‘Trans-Europe Express’ album. Although as recorded versions, these aren’t my favourite Kraftwerk tunes, tonight’s portrayal is mind blowing, littered with hard hitting chair shaking beats, I kid you not! It’s only around 8 minutes in total, but “wow”. The graphics are deadly sharp with black and white contrasts accompanying the music perfectly. Shortly after the concert I asked my friends and those who I knew had attended, to pick out their best songs from the night and ‘Trans-Europe Express’ came up time and time again. For me, we go from the strongest in the set to the weakest ‘La Forme’ from 2003’s ‘Tour De France Soundtracks’ album. Everything’s turned blue. There’s around 24 horizontal blue waving lines on the screen and the band’s suits are blue to match. It’s dazzling, literally! Giant words singularly appear on the screen: “Inspiration, expiration, contraction, decontraction, la forme”. Personally I would have preferred ‘Pocket Calculator’ or even ‘Showroom Dummies’ at this juncture, but I guess I can’t have it all.
Next up are the banging electro beats of ‘Planet Of Visions’ from 2005’s ‘Minimum-Maximum’ live album, which was an updated version of their brilliant ‘Expo 2000’ single from 1999, which was flagwaving the Hanover Expo 2000 world’s fair in Germany. ‘Expo 2000’ was later reworked to remove all Expo references and subsequently titled ‘Planet Of Visions’ (‘Planet Der Visionen’ in German). This reworked version has been played live extensively on all Kraftwerk tours since. I’m particularly fond of the images on the backing screen as they mimic the quartet at the front of the stage. On a number of my previous live encounters with Kraftwerk, they always seem to end with ‘Boing Boom Tschak’ / ‘Techno Pop’ / ‘Musique Non Stop’ from 1986’s ‘Electric Café’ album, with ‘Musique Non Stop’ almost being on a long loop in which fans can vacate the venue to. Tonight, however, we get an encore! The trio of cuts are yet another set highlight and during ‘Musique Non Stop’ the musicians vacate the stage one at a time, having signed off with an individual flourish. Ralf is last to go, with an “Good night, Auf Wiedersehen” he then stands and takes his bow, the audience rise to their feet and give him a standing ovation! Crikey! Can’t recall seeing this before! There’s clearly a great crowd in tonight!
We clap and cheer and they return with their suits a matching red to their podium and work-stations. We are back in 1978 with ‘The Man-Machine’ album, and their departing number is ‘The Robots’ single, which is always a true fan favourite! There’s no dummies in flight-cases this time around as there’s no stage curtain, so it’s the 4 musicians only instead of 8 in the past, but I don’t mind. With Kraftwerk possibly heading to the final years of their career, I’m wondering whether Ralf has planned for the inevitable, and if an ‘ABBA Voyage’ style is on the cards? I guess time will tell, but for now it’s been a truly incredible night and as ‘The Robots’ comes to an end the new ‘fab four’ take their bows and all receive a full-house standing ovation! It’s a case of a job (very much) well done!
Kraftwerk:
Ralf Hütter – vocals, vocoder, synthesizers, keyboards
Henning Schmitz – sound effects, live keyboards
Falk Grieffenhagen – electronic percussion
Georg Bongartz – live video technician
Kraftwerk setlist:
‘Numbers’ / ‘Computer World’ / ‘Computer World 2’ (from 1981 ‘Computer World’ album)
‘Home Computer’ / ‘It’s More Fun To Compute’ (from 1981 ‘Computer World’ & 1991 ‘The Mix’ albums)
‘Spacelab’ (from 1978 ‘The Man-Machine’ album)
‘The Man-Machine’ (from 1978 ‘The Man-Machine’ album)
‘Airwaves’ / ‘Airwaves 2’ (Tango)’ (from 1975 ‘Radio-Activity’ album) / (unreleased)
‘Electric Café’ (from 1986 ‘Electric Café’ album)
‘Autobahn’ (from 1974 ‘Autobahn’ album & 1991 ‘The Mix’ albums)
‘Computer Love’ (from 1981 ‘Computer World’ & 1991 ‘The Mix’ albums)
‘The Model’ (from 1978 ‘The Man-Machine’ album)
‘Neon Lights’ (from 1978 ‘The Man-Machine’ album)
‘Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence’ (Ryūichi Sakamoto cover from 1983 ‘Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (soundtrack)’ album)
‘Geiger Counter’ (from 1975 ‘Radio-Activity’ album)
‘Radioactivity’ (Fukushima Version) (from 1975 ‘Radio-Activity’ album & 1991 ‘The Mix’ albums)
‘Tour De France’ / ‘Chrono’ / ‘Tour De France Étape 2’ (from 2003 ‘Tour De France Soundtracks’ album)
‘Trans-Europe Express’ / ‘Metal On Metal’ / ‘Abzug’ (from 1977 ‘Trans-Europe Express’ album & 1991 ‘The Mix’ albums)
‘La Forme’ (from 2003 ‘Tour De France Soundtracks’ album)
‘Planet Of Visions’ (from 2005 ‘Minimum-Maximum’ live album)
‘Boing Boom Tschak’ / ‘Techno Pop’ / ‘Musique Non Stop’ (from 1986 ‘Electric Café’ album)
(encore)
‘The Robots’ (from 1978 ‘The Man-Machine’ & 1991 ‘The Mix’ albums)
You can find 25 different photos from this concert on our sister website HERE.
