here & now

Today, Kraftwerk’s stage performance may bring to mind retro-SciFi shows and commercial pop perfection, however this debut on German TV captures the experimental starting point of Germany’s most established synth pioneers. With sounds somewhere between the omnipresent E57-Sirens and Steve Reich the audience clearly struggles in confrontation with the new. Apparently, so does the DOP, who records more of the audience’s reaction than the band’s performance, making this footage an interesting documentation of alternative music culture departing from hippie ideas towards the more technology driven aesthetics of the 70s. The political effort of 60s “alternative” still reigns fashion looks and stage elements such as an ironic banner reading “Support the economy – Xmas more frequently”. Maybe the symbolic link between to ages is the thundered whistle used by spectators throughout the concert: standard equipment for 60s rallies and a symbol of grass-roots protest, it found its way to the stylistic repertoire of early electronic music and became an entirely apolitical sound.