KRAFTWERK PERFORMING LIVE AT THE WANG THEATER IN BOSTON
By Rick Fleck
I was first introduced to Kraftwerk my freshman year in college in 1981. A dormmate played “Autobahn” for me. The sound was something entirely new to me. I sat transfixed for the entire 22 minutes and 47 seconds. When the song was over, I managed to ask “Again.” My mind was blown. I have been a fan through all the ensuing decades. Little did I imagine that 44 years later I would be reviewing a stop of the KRAFTWERK: MULTIMEDIA TOUR 2025 – 50 YEARS OF AUTOBAHN tour at the prestigious Wang Theater in Boston’s Theater District. It was a full circle moment. I was there to review the show, but first and foremost, I was an unapologetic fan.
Kraftwerk currently is Ralf Hütter [lead vocalist/keyboardist, co-founder, and the only remaining original member], Henning Schmitz , Falk Grieffenhagen [live video operations/visualizations], and relatively new member (2023), Georg Bongartz .
The set had four podiums, an unadorned platform, and a large movie screen behind the band. The screen and the riser projected dazzling videos and graphics during the concert. The opening number, launched with the repeated counting to eight in German, was the medley of songs “Numbers / Computer World / Computer World 2,” all from the 1981 album Computer World. The graphics were hypnotic, the sound immaculate, and the bass a steady concussive blow to the chest.
“Spacelab,” from their watershed album The Man-Machine, began with graphics that placed you in the command seat of a spacecraft. The graphics looked like they could have been nicked from the cult TV series Mystery Theater 3000 or a UHF sci-fi movie show. They set the stage for an aesthetic that was simple, eye-catching, and lo-fi – retro-futurism imbued with nostalgia. The outro was accompanied by a video that showed a UFO flying over Boston Harbor and then landing on the street in front of the Wang Theater. Do they do it at every stop on the tour? Probably. Did we eat it up? Enthusiastically.
“The Man Machine” brought a huge response from the full theater. The song sounds like it’s made up of electronic samples taken from the sounds chips of legacy arcade games like Space Invaders, Galaxian, and Asteroids. “Electric Café” is the whole package. It’s a multi-dimensional song accompanied by engaging graphics with a bold, upfront beat, lovingly wrapped in the aesthetic of Art Politik.
“Autobahn” is a classic of electronic music, as well as having been at the forefront of the nascent krautrock movement. It is both pioneering and genre defining. It’s as groundbreaking to electronic music as Ike Turner’s “Rocket 88” is to rock ‘n’ roll and Hank William’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” is to country music. The video that accompanied the song was in the same style of artwork that is on the original cover of Autobahn, with a Volkswagen and a Mercedes Benz, travelling up and down a German highway.
The very modern sounding “Computer Love” came swirling in with an upfront infusion of disco. Easily at home at an EDM concert, it was glamorous and highly danceable, including ubiquitous handclaps that managed to be more textural than gimmicky. “The Model” was next, a musically upbeat song with dispassionately delivered, humorously droll lyrics. “The Model” is the only Kraftwerk song where I prefer the English version, because singing along is that much fun. “Neon Lights” is a mellower song that is both wistful and nostalgic, with a melody that would be at home on an ABBA record.
“Geiger Counter” had me wondering if the show was too slick and over-produced. “Is this all too robotic?” I thought. Then I realized that was, indeed, the very point. The production is where the whole concept of “multimedia” becomes apparent, not just the delivery method, but as the overarching Kraftwerk sound, visual style, and philosophy.
“Tour de France / Tour de France Étape 3 / Chrono / Tour de France Étape 2” is a medley from 2003’s Tour de France album, a record that followed a 17 year break in new material. The medley was a cohesive piece with rhythm, crescendos, and electronic flourishes. There was a lush, symphonic intro, the isolated heavy breathing of a cyclist, and music that evoked the passing view of the French countryside, unspooling like a vintage travelog. The accompanying footage of the Tour de France, from grainy news reel to modern video, was presented in the same grainy black and white of an older era.
Upon hearing the first notes, “Trans-Europe Express / Metal on Metal / Abzug” received another ardent reaction from the audience. Being a song about a train, the rhythmic chugging sound of the locomotive and the wheels on the tracks, was as good as any likeness ever created by Johnny Cash. The song was chock full of electronic embellishments like the Doppler Effect of passing, high-speed trains, and the concussive sound a bullet train makes entering a tunnel. The vocals repeated the hypnotic phrase “Trans-Europe Express,” ending it each time with the evocative use of an overextended S. Together, the suite of songs conjured up the rhythm and sway, the repetition and monotony, of a long train journey.
Photos Rick Fleck
Kraftwerk began the encore with their signature song “The Robots.” With their mannequin-like stage presence and computerized vocals, the line “we are the robots” is a statement of precisely who Kraftwerk are. The song was rife with sounds that recalled the science fiction films of the 1950s. What was nostalgia in 1978, when “The Robots” was released, is now like peering into a carefully curated time capsule. “Planet of Visions” employed a bass line that would make George Clinton and the P-Funk Connection proud.
The night was brought to a climactic conclusion with the third medley of the show; “Boing Boom Tschak / Techno Pop / Musique Non Stop,” all from 1986’s Techno Pop album. The songs were given an up-to-date sound more akin to the versions found on the 2017 live album 3-D The Catalogue than the originals. “Techno Pop” was buoyant and playful, bringing to mind Thomas Dolby’s song “She Blinded Me With Science.”
Simply put, “Musique Non Stop” was a sampling masterclass. Kraftwerk has been highly influential to hip-hop, as well as many other genres, with many leading artists of the style, like Afrika Bambaataa, Dr. Dre, and Missy Elliott, citing them as an influence. Remarkably, Kraftwerk has been sampled by other musicians more than 1,000 times to date.
Kraftwerk stayed true to character the entire night. Apart from the songs, not one word was spoken from the stage to the audience. The only sign of them being humans and not robots, as they have replaced themselves with lifelike robotic mannequins in the past, came when they said goodbye. Each member left the stage one at a time, walking stage left, standing in a spotlight and waving and/or bowing to the audience.
The venerable Hütter was the last to leave. Hand over heart, with touching sincerity, he lingered for a while in front of the adoring audience. One might think, in the emotion of the moment, his gesture was a final goodbye, that this may be the last Kraftwerk tour. In Düsseldorf, in 1970, Kraftwerk brought something new to electronic music, rock, and pop. In the 50+ years since then they have remained fresh and vital. Here’s hoping I misread Hütter’s goodbye.
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