Kraftwerk -

Boiler Room, Melbourne BDO

If I told you that a huge tent full of disparate souls could fall in love with four odd-looking German men in grey suits, would you believe me? If I told you that four VAIO laptops and a collection of synthesizers and computers could reduce grown men to tears of joy, would you scoff at the concept? What if I told you that a screen full of green digital text and Tron-esque graphics could be the most exciting thing you’d ever seen? Well, if you had seen Kraftwerk at this year’s Big Day Out, you would believe me.

Set to a throbbing synth pulse, thick black curtains were drawn to reveal four silver workstations, each one holding a laptop computer. Then, with all the grandeur of a group of accountants starting their shift, the mensch maschines marched on to the stage and turned to face the audience. Without a blink they uploaded ‘Numbers’ into the darkness and hundreds of bemused dance-heads were overcome and shouted ‘eine, zwei, drei, vier’ along with the computer projections of dancing numbers. This segued into ‘Computerworld’, which was met with enthusiasm. The biggest roar, however, came when the image of a calculator hit the huge screen. ‘Pocket Calculator’ was incredible. ‘Vocalist’ Ralf Hütter has an endearing way of delivering his lines, cupping his hand near his mouth as if to tell a secret; as though “I am adding… and subtracting” was the key to the meaning of life. Florian Schneider looks particularly robotic with his shiny head no doubt encasing a formidable brain.
Occasionally their serious facades would crumble to reveal a slight smile, or they would cast a benevolent eye upon the dancing crowds, but then it was back to the poker faces. For all we know they could have been doing their tax return on those laptops.
The rest of the set was just as good: ‘Tour De France’, ‘Autobahn’, and ‘Trans Europe Express’.
Before the ‘T.E.E’ encore, they concluded with the powerful ‘[Stop] Radioactivity’, which stunned the crowd into terrified silence with its mantra, “Tschernobel, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Hiroshima”. It was the only political statement all day, and all the more powerful for it.

People have complained that the music of Kraftwerk is the cold music of sterile machines, but that not only misses the point, it is wrong. Kraftwerk have realized the inherent emotional response that the wonder of technology can inspire, like watching a rocket go to the moon or marveling at the information super highway. Isaac Asimov said astutely that the only thing that is inhuman about a computer “is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest”. These computers spoke directly and personally to each person in the room. Everyone was overcome with emotion: the boy in the boiler suit with his hands clasped to his heart as if to pray, with the digital display reflected in the tracks of his tears, or the woman who exclaimed to everyone after each song, “this one’s my favourite!”. It’s the soundtrack for any child who has ever loved their Speak & Spell, any student who has sought solace in their calculator’s Tetris games, any person who has relied on their computer like a vital organ.
Hütter once said “when you play electronic music, you have control of the imaginations of the people in the room… to an extent where it’s almost physical”. Kraftwerk create a vision of a future which humans have held dear since the foundations of science, fact and fiction. A world where machines think and react and robots dream and emote.
They have seen our future and they are here to broadcast it to us. It is safe in their hands.

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