Kraftwerk Play ‘Autobahn’ at Disney Hall Residency: Concert Review

Half a century in the past, give or take a 12 months, two of essentially the most influential artists of the late twentieth century launched their respective breakthrough albums, every that includes a really lengthy title monitor about driving down a selected regional freeway. It is perhaps a little bit of a stretch to recommend that Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” and Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn” characterize the good divergence level in Western widespread music — with natural, heart-on-a-sleeve sincerity on one aspect, and ironic future-shock digital experimentation on the opposite — however that case can actually be made, and it’s exhausting to consider many trendy acts that don’t have a few of both of these albums or artists of their musical DNA.

We’ll have to attend till 2025 to see what the Boss has deliberate for “Born to Run’s” golden anniversary. Till then, Kraftwerk acquired the celebrations began in earnest on Tuesday, enjoying 1974’s “Autobahn” in its entirety for the primary night time of its nine-show residency at Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Live performance Corridor. Reprising a sequence the group first performed at New York’s Museum of Trendy Artwork greater than a decade in the past, Kraftwerk might be highlighting every of its landmark albums all through the approaching week — nights devoted to “Radio-Activity,” “Trans Europe Express” “Computer World,” “Techno Pop,” “The Mix” and a closing retrospective are nonetheless to return — however revisiting the document that each one however invented synth pop and digital dance music felt notably particular.

That mentioned, if you happen to have been anticipating the group to mark the anniversary with self-aggrandizing speeches or Springsteen-esque onstage storytelling… nicely, you might not be acquainted with Kraftwerk. Düsseldorf’s best have been all enterprise from the primary minute of the present, which kicked off at exactly the marketed time. In what is definitely a preview of nights to return, Tuesday’s live performance noticed “Autobahn” sandwiched into the center of a two-hour set, preceded and adopted by a sampling of best hits from all through the band’s profession. (In different phrases, regardless of which night time you catch, you’re nonetheless going to be in for the total Kraftwerk catalog expertise.)

The group — now composed of lone remaining unique member Ralf Hütter and his unspeaking, unsmiling colleagues Henning Schmitz, Falk Grieffenhagen and Georg Bongartz — barely moved all through the efficiency, every musician anchored to their respective workstations. But Kraftwerk nonetheless presents probably the most visually partaking reveals you’re prone to see, with spectacular video accompaniment and the “Tron”-style light-up bodysuits donned by every member providing no scarcity of head-trip spectacle. (Endearingly, the lights on Grieffenhagen’s left boot suffered a malfunction early within the efficiency, and remained neon inexperienced for the rest of the present whilst the remainder of the group’s ensembles modified coloration repeatedly. That is the closest factor to an unscripted second you’ll be able to anticipate at a Kraftwerk present.)

Dour demeanors apart, there was by no means any sense that the live performance was merely a plug-and-play affair. Requirements like “Numbers,” “Airwaves,” “Computer Love” and “The Man-Machine” sounded as huge and ahead-of-their-time as ever, with Hütter giving the late showstopper “Trans Europe Express” a couple of impromptu gildings, turning that oft-sampled synth melody inside-out till the tune resembled a midnight prepare to Transylvania. In fact, the central enchantment of an in-its-entirety efficiency is attending to sift by way of the deep cuts, and “Autobahn” had a lot to supply past the nonetheless pleasant 20-minute title monitor. The meditative, two-part “Kometenmelodie” supplied a stunning little breather amidst the entire kling und klang of the heavy-hitters, whereas “Mitternacht” felt like one thing out of a horror film, with video screens zooming out and in on an unnervingly placid nocturnal residential scene.

However for all of the visible stimuli that Kraftwerk crammed into the night, the true star of the present was the sound design. Whereas so lots of the group’s generations-later EDM heirs depend on denture-rattling bass drops to compensate for a muddy combine, Kraftwerk’s sound was completely calibrated for the Disney Corridor’s acoustics. Each metallic skitter, twisted vocoder vocal line and synth bloop sounded simply as crisp and fast as they might on a pair of hi-fi headphones.

As painstakingly skilled because the efficiency might have been, it’s nonetheless unusual to see Kraftwerk grow to be a fully-fledged oldies act, with Hütter because the group’s sole proprietor. (Puckish co-founder Florian Schneider left the group in 2008 and handed away in 2020, whereas longtime members Wolfgang Flur and Karl Bartos every departed within the late ‘80s.) In an interview from earlier this year, Bartos wryly referred to Hütter as a “traveling salesman of nostalgia,” and one can understand why he’d be miffed to see the group that after pushed the boundaries of sonic risk with each launch now content material to coast on previous glories.  

All the identical, there was one thing undeniably poignant in regards to the sight of Hütter, now 77, chopping a dignified determine in his Spandex swimsuit, his uncommon unprocessed vocals now sounding very very like the voice of a septuagenarian. As Tuesday’s present reached its climax with a thunderous tackle “The Robots” — showroom dummy likenesses of the band’s 4 members jerking and convulsing on the video display screen whereas lighting strikes of crimson gentle erupted from backstage — it was exhausting not to consider the uneasy flip that know-how has taken since Kraftwerk’s heyday. With each tech monopolist and Silicon Valley grifter now promising to carry in regards to the type of man-machine convergence that Kraftwerk has been pondering because the Nineteen Seventies, it’s hanging simply how basically human their music sounds immediately. No large-language mannequin might have formulated the sly humor of “It’s More Fun to Compute” or “The Model.” No AI program will ever be subtle sufficient to behold a Casio calculator and assume to compose a timeless tune about it. Hütter himself has hinted that Kraftwerk might nicely preserve going past his natural lifespan — “some programs keep running,” as he put it — however the secret of Kraftwerk is that it takes a flesh-and-blood heartbeat to maintain these wheels in movement, and we must always by no means take it without any consideration that they may proceed after this one powers down.

Certainly, for all his deadpan lack of sentimentality, one needed to think about Hütter breaking into one thing resembling a smile as he left the stage to a standing ovation after “Musique Non Stop,” a fully-deserved acknowledgement for a physique of labor that has shifted the course of widespread music in numerous methods over the past 50 years. He’s, as Kraftwerk’s most completed college students may put it, human in spite of everything.

Setlist

Numbers

Laptop World

Residence Laptop/It’s Extra Enjoyable to Compute

Spacelab

Airwaves

Tango

The Man-Machine

Electrical Cafe

Autobahn

Kometenmelodie 1

Kometenmelodie 2

Mitternacht

Morgenspaziergang

Laptop Love

The Mannequin

Tour de France

Trans Europe Specific

The Robots

Planet of Visions

Boing Increase Tschak/Musique Non Cease