Kraftwerk makes their first appearance in the North East of England in 36 years.
Throughout their almost fifty year career, Kraftwerk has only twice previously performed on Tyneside, with their first appearance being at the dearly missed Mayfair Ballroom back in 1975. Kraftwerk went on to make a return date in 1981 at the Newcastle City Hall in support of their Computer World album.
Subsequently, so much was the demand for this rare show at the Sage Gateshead that all of the tickets were snapped up in record time. Over recent weeks music fans have been desperately appealing online for returns or spare tickets but due to the strict, no resale policy in place on this tour they have largely been unsuccessful.
Although Kraftwerk’s lineup has changed somewhat since their formation in 1969, one of the groups founding members Ralf Hütter still remains at the helm after all of this time.
As pioneers of the electronic genre, Kraftwerk has gone on to influence a who’s who of the music world which includes the likes of David Bowie, Coldplay and Gary Numan through to the likes of Afrika Bambaataa, The Orb and New Order, as well as pretty much everyone in between. Subsequently, their groundbreaking work was recognised by the Recording Academy with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.
Tonight’s show at the Sage Gateshead is part of the group’s critically acclaimed Kraftwerk 3-D tour. The capacity crowd of lucky ticket holders in attendance each are each given a pair of souvenir 3-D glasses to fully enjoy and submerge themselves in the experience, as Kraftwerk’s music is fully brought to life with the aid of visual projections at the rear of the stage.
As a venue, the Sage Gateshead is more traditionally known as being the home of the Royal Northern Symphonia. However tonight this acoustically perfect room is filled is filled with not orchestral sounds but rather electronic beats, synths and pounding bass rhythms. The patrons each are transfixed, 3-D glasses perched on their face, giving the room a feel reminiscent of a vintage movie theatre.
“Numbers” starts off the show with its synthetic vocal introduction of ‘Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier, Funf, Sechs, Sieben, Acht’ and sets the scene for the evening. The track is, in turn, segued into “Computer World” before an epic rendition of “It’s More Fun To Compute”. Each track is accompanied by stimulating complimentary visuals.
The group recently released Kraftwerk: 3-D The Catalogue, which features all of their eight studio albums. Subsequently, tonight’s show is very much a retrospective look back on their whole back catalogue.
Kraftwerk takes the North East faithful through a career-spanning set which includes many of their influential compositions including the likes of “The Model”, “Autobahn”, “Radioactivity”, “Computer World”, “Trans Europe Express” and encore “Robots” to name but a few.
After all these years this innovative German outfit still continues to push the boundaries of both music and the live concert experience. Kraftwerk has married up an audio-visual show the likes of which we have never seen before. Tonight’s concert is a real success and a coup for both the venue and the region alike.
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Kraftwerk
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Event Date: 14-JUNE-2017