Kraftwerk live / Jan 17 2003
May 07, 2020
Kraftwerk live / Jan 17
| Jan 18, 2003 01:05
We never heard more than three songs each from the first three bands we encountered at the Big Day Out: Pacifier because we were restless; Queens of the Stone Age because their power kept cutting out; and PJ Harvey because some prick scheduled her at the same time as Kraftwerk. Do the kids know Peej? She's been at the BDO before but her core audience is surely a little older; folks who know her before she hired the stylist and hung out with Nick and so on. She found a new audience with her Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea LP and the Flood-produced album before it, but she goes back further and it showed. She towered. She rocked like an indie chick. She sent the boys home.
Pacifier sounded flat to me although 'Home Again' lifted the crowd's spirits. After that number we bailed and went walking through the crowd, a roil of wraparounds, pheremones and sunburn. Forget drugs warnings: kids, use sunblock. People were crisped orange like tandoori chicken. Queens of the Stone Age tried to get serious but the power kept failing. Their songs are very stop / start rock opera anyway, so the stops at first seemed intentional. To duplicate modern American rock, listen to Thin Lizzy while you move your fingers in and out of your ears. Why is rock so slow? Did 'Walk this way' really change the game? It must have, I guess. Then way in the distance the aforementioned Polly came on stage with real songs, a fab little trio and her huge, knifing voice: she was great. But we had to split to catch the men from Dusseldorf.
I thought the tent would be empty but it was full and tripped out. Kids born after Kraftwerk's last album were pushing up the front to see the band. Maybe they would have crushed for anyone but it was moving. They cheered favourite numbers like 'Autobahn' and bopped to 'Expo 2000' which the band punched up to a garage beat as if to demonstrate their range. The slow melodies of 'Neon Lights' and 'Man Machine' were charming. 'Radioactivity' had been reworked to say "stop radioactivity" which got a big local cheer; 'Autobahn' finished with a graphic with a red "banned" line through it. Kraftwerk were sleek, impressive and sensitive: the audience danced and had a good time. The experience was electronic music as being something clean and futuristic instead of a dirty drug soundtrack. Electronic music has evolved into a background commodity now, like furniture. This was a band controlling the form they had originated, updating it, re-engineering it, drawing a whole new crowd into their neural net. Ralf closed his eyes and dipped to the beat. Florian has a cup holder on the side of his console. He was the first to leave the machines to play at the conclusion of 'Music Non Stop', slamming his lap lid down and leaping off stage. People went nuts. The band never acknowledged them once. 'Boing Boom Tschak' was huge. I'm glad I saw them. They were weird and distant. They were lovely.
Ralf was born in 1946; Florian in 1947. They've been through 12 lineups now and they remain interesting and strange. That's a good example for artists and writers and musicians everywhere, any time.
| Jan 18, 2003 01:05
We never heard more than three songs each from the first three bands we encountered at the Big Day Out: Pacifier because we were restless; Queens of the Stone Age because their power kept cutting out; and PJ Harvey because some prick scheduled her at the same time as Kraftwerk. Do the kids know Peej? She's been at the BDO before but her core audience is surely a little older; folks who know her before she hired the stylist and hung out with Nick and so on. She found a new audience with her Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea LP and the Flood-produced album before it, but she goes back further and it showed. She towered. She rocked like an indie chick. She sent the boys home.
Pacifier sounded flat to me although 'Home Again' lifted the crowd's spirits. After that number we bailed and went walking through the crowd, a roil of wraparounds, pheremones and sunburn. Forget drugs warnings: kids, use sunblock. People were crisped orange like tandoori chicken. Queens of the Stone Age tried to get serious but the power kept failing. Their songs are very stop / start rock opera anyway, so the stops at first seemed intentional. To duplicate modern American rock, listen to Thin Lizzy while you move your fingers in and out of your ears. Why is rock so slow? Did 'Walk this way' really change the game? It must have, I guess. Then way in the distance the aforementioned Polly came on stage with real songs, a fab little trio and her huge, knifing voice: she was great. But we had to split to catch the men from Dusseldorf.
I thought the tent would be empty but it was full and tripped out. Kids born after Kraftwerk's last album were pushing up the front to see the band. Maybe they would have crushed for anyone but it was moving. They cheered favourite numbers like 'Autobahn' and bopped to 'Expo 2000' which the band punched up to a garage beat as if to demonstrate their range. The slow melodies of 'Neon Lights' and 'Man Machine' were charming. 'Radioactivity' had been reworked to say "stop radioactivity" which got a big local cheer; 'Autobahn' finished with a graphic with a red "banned" line through it. Kraftwerk were sleek, impressive and sensitive: the audience danced and had a good time. The experience was electronic music as being something clean and futuristic instead of a dirty drug soundtrack. Electronic music has evolved into a background commodity now, like furniture. This was a band controlling the form they had originated, updating it, re-engineering it, drawing a whole new crowd into their neural net. Ralf closed his eyes and dipped to the beat. Florian has a cup holder on the side of his console. He was the first to leave the machines to play at the conclusion of 'Music Non Stop', slamming his lap lid down and leaping off stage. People went nuts. The band never acknowledged them once. 'Boing Boom Tschak' was huge. I'm glad I saw them. They were weird and distant. They were lovely.
Ralf was born in 1946; Florian in 1947. They've been through 12 lineups now and they remain interesting and strange. That's a good example for artists and writers and musicians everywhere, any time.