The Hammerstein Ballroom stage was hidden behind a curtain resembling vellum. Without fanfare or preamble, the houselights dimmed and a soft voice, speaking in German, gave the introduction. Then a sharp red light created a silhouette of four distinct shapes on the screen. Damen und Herren, Kraftwerk.

This was not to be a rock show. Nor was it a night at the discotheque. Kraftwerk presented its groundbreaking electronic music - accompanied by an perfectly attuned visual show - as more of a concept piece. Because their music is written with humor and humanness, the performance was artful, yet free of the cold detachment of a museum or art gallery. Kraftwerk's themes are not didactic. The message, if there is one, is left up to the beholder. Or you could decide not to look for a message and enjoy the beats and the screens. The show was a success on many levels.

Appropriately Kraftwerk opened the night with "The Man Machine" as they would both praise mankind and its creations and subtly poke fun at our absurd tendency to plot our own extinction. Kraftwerk's imagination seems inspired by humanity and its ability to create beautiful, complex and nonsensical machines. "Tour De France" triumphed our physical capabilities; "The Model" praised surface beauty; "Vitamin" dissected the building blocks of life while in the background giant pills floated peacefully down the screen. A reminder of our obsession with modifying and enhancing the our own machine perhaps?

Kraftwerk's music reminds us that we can build highway systems ("Autobahn") and complex computer systems ("Computer World", "Pocket Calculator", "Home Computer", "The Robots"), but down that highway may be a nuclear plant using those computers to pollute us and kill us. A brief message on the dangers of the Sellafield nuclear plant in England introduced "Radioactivity". It was the closest Kraftwerk would come to an overt political message. Kraftwerk may sing about computer love ("Computer Love", sadly was not performed) but the dark side of technology shadows their message, giving it compelling dimension.

Enough can not be said about Kraftwerk's brilliant marriage of audio and visual into one mesmerizing experience, but I think I'll let the photos in this post speak for themselves. These were taken from the first balcony in the ballroom. It was probably the best place to witness this show as the visuals were truly breathtaking. There are more photos after the jump and many, many more on Flickr.


















More photos on Flickr.com