Kraftwerk played Radio City Music Hall – 6/17
German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk brought the 2022 edition of their 3D concert tour to NYC’s legendary Radio City Music Hall.
There’s a lot of really dark stuff happening in the world right now, but no matter how dire the situation, there’s always some things you can take comfort and solace in. Wearing 1980s-style 3D glasses to enhance the illusion of a giant robot arm reaching out across one of the world’s most famous concert halls is one of them.
Kraftwerk – the reclusive, enigmatic collective behind some of history’s most groundbreaking synthpop and electronic music – haven’t released a record since 2003’s Tour de France Soundtracks, but periodically still bring their 3D spectacular on the road. Their last such major tour to reach the northeast was almost 7 years ago, and though not a whole lot has changed about the production in the meantime, I couldn’t pass up a rare chance to catch the show again.
I say “production” because that’s really what Kraftwerk 3D amounts to, moreso than a traditional concert. The current foursome, still led by founder Ralf Hütter, deliver a setlist of classic material with a mechanical precision that’s carefully synched to the live multi-dimensional video accompaniment. “Autobahn” takes you on a virtual Sunday drive, “Tour de France” brings you straight to the course and “Numbers” brings you…well, lots of numbers. The staging, from the glasses to the floating objects to the architecture of the imagery itself, is delightfully out-of-time; by turns retro and modern, hokey and futuristic.
The whole thing perfectly captures Kraftwerk’s ethos: playful, wondrous, and the slightest bit eerie. The group’s music always fused a fascination with the marvels of technology and a twinge of dread, present and accounted for in the strobing names of nuclear disaster sites during the “Geiger Counter”/”Radioactivity” suite and the uncanny valley vibe of watching the members’ robot equivalents unveiled from behind a screen to “perform” “The Robots” without their human counterparts.
The last time I caught the show, I sat about halfway back on the floor at Boston’s Wang Theatre, but from my seats way up in Radio City’s third mezzanine this time around, I think the full scope of the thing filling such a spectacular room was even more impressive. The tour stopped at the same spot in Boston this month, too, but I’m very glad I made the NY trek for a fresh version of the experience.
Scroll below for some photos from downstairs during the first few songs of the night (sorry, third dimension not included – you’ll need to shell out for a ticket to really get the effect).
