Machine, Maschine, Maszynowy

The couple of times Kraftwerk have performed in Ireland in the last 5yrs or so I had the misfortune of either not having a spare penny to go see them, or being out of the country. These days I do have a few spare pennies so when The Robots announced a while back that they would be performing 3 concerts in Krakow in Poland I got the credit card out and picked up a cheap flight and a ticket to go see them last Friday.  They were the headline act of the week long festival, Sacrum Profanum, which this year would be focusing on German music with the varied likes of Ute Lemper and Paul Hillier also performing. But I wasn’t to arrive until late on Thursday night, and only the 3 night stand of Kraftwerk was left on the programme, the first night of which I would be attending.

Even though I had purchased tickets without thinking much about the venue, it certainly came as an added bonus when I found out that they would be playing in an old steel mill works outside of Krakow in a part called Nowa Huta, a relic from post-war communist Poland. As my mate Jason commented as we queued up outside the gates, what would people who had worked there 30yrs ago think, seeing their place of employment being converted into a concert venue for a group from the old West Germany? It certainly seemed more interesting than the typical concert venue.

When we arrived before 8 o clock there was a small queue forming at the gates the workers would have entered from. This small queue was soon to form into a mass of about 2000 people, and even though the rain teemed down on us, everyone waited patiently until the buses arrived to shuttle us down to the part of the works that was converted for the night’s show. It all added to the excitement, and after an hour we were damn glad to get inside, but maybe they could have just signposted us towards where to go, and we could have walked, seeing more of the area. When we got off the bus we were greeted with a huge massive wall of concrete – without a proper window in sight – at the end of which was a large entrance into the factory floor. A massive rig of scaffolding was built about 40metres in for the seating, on the back of which hung two screens projecting either Kraftwerk images or ones to do with the festival itself. There was moving spotlights lighting up this area, with a few stalls and surprisingly, no alcohol. Strange for somewhere in Poland, and you couldn’t smoke either, but then it wasn’t an everyday venue. All the mechanics of the factory were still in place outside the space cleared for the concert, no stupid decorating hiding what we were in. We walked under the scaffolding into the main standing area of the arena as we had the cheap tickets (which were a mere 25e), with the huge seating area reaching all the way up to the roof of the venue behind us. A small part of the factory had been cordoned off – you could see behind and to the side the factory going on far into the dark – and it really was a unique place to see The Man Machine. I didn’t have a camera sadly, to take photos of it before the lights went down.

After about half an hour the slight hum of bleeps and bass could be heard from the speakers, getting louder and louder before the lights went down and the crowd started clapping and cheering, getting louder and louder once the intro stopped and Ralf Hutter could be heard behind the curtain, chanting the classic refrain “Machine, Machine, Machine…”. After years of frustration and hopes of seeing them, the curtain pulled back and it suddenly seemed…a little bit anti-climatic. Man Machine, Planet of Vision, Numbers and Computerwelt went by in somewhat of a haze. There was a little tweaking of the sound, and while there was nothing wrong with what was going on infront of me, maybe the whole excitement and build up had been a little bit too much. Then Home Computer came out of the speakers and my head was blown clean off. The bass had been adjusted nicely and the on stage lighting and projections were just, well, perfect. From then on I was completely sucked in. A bomb could have gone off right beside me and I wouldn’t have noticed. The sober and mixed crowd – everyone from teenagers to a small group of 50-60 something women who’d been in the queue beside us on the way in – were similarly entranced, nobody uttering a word as they played, something that can be such an irritant at concerts. Due to the fact no one was drinking you didn’t have people walking by you to the toilets or knocking drink on you. Then half way through Pocket Calculator, with a rye smirk on his face, Ralf changed from German to Polish and the whole crowd erupted into whoops and hollering, clapping and even some singing along. It was actually  the only time I paid any attention to the crowd for the rest of the main set, I was completely in a world of my own.

As the show went on, it became increasingly difficult to determine what would be my highlights. Computerliebe rushed out in a flurry of perfect pop melodies, Neonlicht was as beautiful and melancholic as music gets, Radioactivity was just a massive assault on the senses. It’s moments like these that makes one remember just why Kraftwerk are as legendary as they are, how so much music – not just techno – may not be the same if it wasn’t for them. I once had a chat with Akufen in a club in Berlin, and he talked of them and the show being a museum piece. I doubt anyone in Nowa Huta on Friday night would’ve agreed. Tour De France Soundtracks may not be the most revered of works but the version of Tour De France Étape 1 performed last week was thrilling, as it it weaved in and out of itself like the videos of cyclists projecting behind.  The bass was so heavy during it the whole building could be heard shaking in the background, acting like an extra piece of percussion. In a way the performance may be a history lesson but this along with the smart rejigging of older songs prove that this is an act still capable of creating magic many many years after what is viewed as their peak.

The curtains closed at the end of an immense Trans Europe Express and within a minute the building started shaking again, this time from the feet of the crowd stamping impatiently for the arrival of The Robots. Obviously the crowd went off again as the curtains pulled back but it seemed to be over just as quickly as it started, that little bit too short a version to fully bask in the oddity that is the jagged, odd movements of the bands mechanical counterparts. The time it takes to get them on and off, I’d rather they’d maybe ditched the following Elektro Cardiogram for a longer Die Roboter. It’s a minor gripe really though. Similar to  Étape 1 earlier, Aerodynamic really came alive compared with on record before Music Non Stop finished off the night perfectly. I walked out slowly in a daze, with the music swirling around in my head which twinned with some tiredness from lots of walking around Krakow earlier in the day – and a “few” drinks the night before – had me wandering off my bus home in the middle of nowhere a fair few miles outside of Krakow. Once I gathered myself I bought a beer from a petrol station and walked for a couple of miles, taking in the night before jumping in a cab back to my apartment.

Since they started touring again in 04 many have caught the show – some 10,000 over the 3 nights in Krakow alone – but if you haven’t and they come anywhere near your town it’s a must see. And if you have seen them, why not go again, it’s an amazing collage of sound and visuals. The 3 people I went with are far from as big fans of them as I am, but were similarly enraptured by the performance. Some reports on-line of their recent show in Dublin included some hilariously blinkered comments such as “it wasn’t banging enough”. Pay no mind to such ignorance, this is Music. Non Stop.