The Judge RAVES!

Date: 02/06/26

Die letzte Runde?

I could hardly believe that it had been nine years since we last did this.

Last Thursday week (21/05), I was once again in Wendy and Tez's car, Tez and I attired in red shirts and black ties, on the way to a Kraftwerk gig.

There were a number of differences this time compared to the previous occasions: for one thing, they have a different car now; and secondly, instead of heading north-easterly to Manchester, we were going south-easterly to Wolverhampton, at whose Civic Hall our latest rendezvous with the Düsseldorf massive was to be held. The actual distance was, however, almost exactly the same.

A483, A5, M54 (not exactly the dusty glamour of Route 66, I know); a road network designed far more to go past places rather then through them. Wrexham, Chirk, Oswestry, Shrewsbury, Telford; all skirted rather than experienced. It was only when we turned off onto the A41 near Cosford airfield that we actually encountered built-up areas. A little bit further on, and we encountered something somewhat bizarre:

Wergs.

Yes there is, just north-west of Tettenhall, a settlement with a name which sounds like a slightly modulated belch. A presentable looking place, for all that.

Our first encounter with slow traffic came shortly afterwards as we headed towards the centre of Wolverhampton city itself. But then again, it was getting on for 1700hrs and people were heading home to their preferred suburb.

We fetched up with impeccable timing at Fold Street car park shortly after five; 'impeccable' because that was the time at which the parking charge reduces to £2. Wendy had this all planned to the finest detail.

As we got out of the car (with some difficulty in my case, because the back doors of the Toyota were very narrow and involved my having to try to unfold myself from a rather deep seating position), we heard a voice from our left:

"I know where you're going!".

This turned out to emanate from a middle-aged man who had just parked up a few yards away. It was mine and Tez's garb which had tipped him off, and it seemed likely that he was in town for the same purpose. We exchanged pleasantries before we ambled slowly up to Queen Square and on to Lichfield Street.

As the gig was slated to begin at 1900hrs, we had decided to have a meal first, and so we hied us to the Moon Under Water. This is a Wetherspoon establishment, which gave me some pause for thought, but on going inside found it to be a very pleasant, well-appointed and airy place. We took our seats and Wendy went off to the bar to place our orders.

I saw a rather plump middle-aged man at a nearby table wearing an Autobahn t-shirt. This was clearly the place for followers of the Man Machine to congregate.

At this point we were approached by a couple who turned out to be acquaintances of Wendy and Tez from their frequent gigging. Pete and Vicky from Telford (for it was they) came and sat with us while we awaited the food.

When it arrived, I must admit to being impressed: a steak and ale pudding (in effect, a small pie turned upside down), lashings of mashed potatoes, a pot of gravy and another of mushy peas plus a small diet Coke came to less than £6.

So we sat there chewing the fat while we dined, and our considered view was that this was going to be the band's farewell tour, but that - entirely in keeping with their practice over many years - they weren't telling anyone.

Finally, at some time well after 1800, we set out for our ultimate destination. The band's website had given 1900 for the gig, which seemed a bit early. We reached the conclusion that that would be the time that the doors opened, and that the likely starting time would be 2000.

We therefore stepped leisurely out in a fine late-spring evening, retracing our steps back towards Queen Square. My concept of Wolverhampton - based on nothing more than brute prejudice and the fact that, whilst I had been through the place more than once, I had never actually seen it - was that of just another somewhat run-down and dingy English town, but I was surprised on the right side by the fact that a lot of characterful old buildings still survive and thrive.

We turned right on to North Street and encountered the queue which was forming along its eastern side, before crossing the road and shuffling along the opposite pavement, where bags were being checked. On entry into the venue, we headed upstairs to the entrance to the circle where - by a stroke of good fortune on Wendy's part - we had bought seats just left of the centre with clear line of sight to the stage.

After a brief perusal of the merchandising area, we went in to find our perches. In the semi-gloom, I had difficulty in finding my bearings at all, especially given the steep rake of the seats. Eventually, we located our positions and sat - just like we had at the Velodrome and Bridgewater Hall - with me between my two friends.

Unlike those previous two occasions, however, there was no curtain around the stage area, and there were to be no 3D graphics. All that was on the stage were the four consoles, behind which was the backdrop screen which was showing the 8-bit-style graphics which feature on the cover of the Catalogue remasters box set from 2009. The creepiness of the motions of the figures was fully matched by the sounds being played.

While we waited, I cast my eyes around the auditorium and saw that nobody else seemed to have made the effort to dress for the occasion which Tez and I had made. There were two areas at the front end of the circle (which was rectangular) on either side for which seats had obviously not been sold due to sighting issues (or that the band didn't want anyone peeking over their shoulders to see precisely what it is that they do with their equipment). That apart, it seemed to be a full house.

Wendy engaged in conversation with a middle-aged man to her left, who had accompanied his upper-teenaged son to the gig; the youth's first experience of the band live. They had come all the way up from Cheltenham, having failed to get tickets for the Bristol performance later in the tour.

Then the house lights went down, the 8-bit figures faded to nothing. Then the music started. "Eight o'clock on the dot", declared Tez. Unlike the previous gigs I had attended, the opening was not the familiar "tick-a-tick-a-tick" of Man Machine but the opening of Numbers. As the digits paraded on the screen, on came Die Knaben. Ralf first, as the leader and sole remaining original member, who went across to the console far stage right. He was followed by Henning Schmitz, the only other member of the modern classic line-up (Fritz Hilpert having left some four years ago for reasons unstated), then Falk Grieffenhagen (promoted from video controller in 2017 to fully-fledged musical component) and finally Georg Bongartz, the current purveyor of the graphics, who took his position stage right.

The numbers were flying all over the place by this time. Curiously, I thought they looked more 3D than the 3D display had done, but then they didn't have that green and red 'outline' effect which was necessary for 3D.

The first impression - and one which was to stay with me all evening - was that the sound was too loud. I pondered that perhaps they hadn't taken into account that this was a somewhat smaller venue than the ones they have been accustomed to performing in, and that the necessary adjustments to the volume had not been made. It wouldn't be like them to miss something which seemed to me at least to be a pretty obvious consideration. I'm afraid that the loudness was somewhat off-putting and negatively impacted my experience of the whole gig.

As has been the custom, Numbers morphed into the other two parts of the Computerworld suite. This was followed by two other tracks from the same album, namely Home Computer and It's More Fun To Compute. This is the point where something else impinged on my consciousness:

As I have remarked before, Ralf Hütter himself would never consider himself to be a 'singer'. For much of his career, a sort of Sprechgesang was good enough for the job. In 2017, said Sprechgesang seemed to have devolved into Sprechstimme. Here, it had morphed further into a somewhat out-of-tune and rather weak sounding Sprech, where he seemed to struggle to maintain any working relationship with the melody at all. It was rather sad, even taking into account the fact that he will be eighty in August. It just didn't seem right.

We then came to Spacelab, another staple of live sets for many years. I wondered whether they would still be using the same trope as last time. Sure enough, near the end we saw the silver flying saucer coming in over Wulfrun's city and finally touching down right where we had been queuing a short time before.

At Bridgewater Hall, I had been surprised by the inclusion of Airwaves, having never expected it to be part of the live set. But here it was again, with an oscilloscope pattern played on the screen. There was a short pause at the end, but then the waves returned as a backdrop to a track which was new to me. It turns out that this was an unreleased piece - unofficially known as Tango to the cognoscenti. It was pleasant enough (volume notwithstanding) and had quite a beat to it (reminiscent of the 2003 Tour De France album, but didn't add greatly to the legend, I felt.

Then..."tick-a-tick-a-tick...". Ah, here comes the Man Machine, with the arrangement and the graphics showing no noticeable change from 2017. The same could be said for Electric Café, which had been as much a surprise to hear back then as had Airwaves. Again, no obvious changes from last time could be perceived.

We then hit the road with another drive on the Autobahn. The route and the scenery were the same as ever, except - not for the only time during the evening - parts of it seemed out of tune; much like Herr Hütter's voice, in fact.

(I wondered whether this was a repeat of the problem they had playing a venue in Paris at the turn of the eighties, whereby the synths went out of tune at about 8pm. It was discovered that that was the time that a nearby car factory started its night shift; the resulting strain on the transmission grid meant that Peugeot were affecting the composition).

The second section (which I adore so much that I have instructed that it be played at my funeral when the teeming multitudes are filing out of the crem) suffered particularly from the infernal volume, which removed any sense of nuance.

The next three tracks - Computer Love (in its revamped 1991 version), The Model and Neon Lights - featured Ralf's voice which - even when it was in tune - sounded as one might expect for someone approaching his ninth decade. The beefed-up instrumental coda to the last-named track was - as in Manchester - too chunky to permit much subtlety.

I must admit that I was getting quite disillusioned at this point. There seemed to be little in the way of invention or difference in either sound or sight. What didn't help was that the seats in the hall were not suited to long performances, and I was required awkwardly to shift my position to stave off an attack of numbus bumbus.

We then did have a novelty, one I had been forewarned of by the review of their Belfast gig in the Guardian. Ralf told us about how in 1981 - when they were touring the Computerworld album, he met the composer Ryuichi Sakamoto in Tokyo and formed a firm friendship which lasted to the legendary Japanese artist's death just over three years ago. At this point, the lights dimmed, the backdrop went to a medium blue and we heard the highly unusual sound of Kraftwerk doing a cover version; that being Sakamoto's theme from Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. It was very effective and moving, providing a real highlight to the evening.

It was then back to the standards, with Geiger Counter sounding as if it had been thrust into the reactor at Chernobyl even before it had been switched on, leading to the inevitable playing of Radioactivity in its 1991 form (with added reference to Fukushima). I think it was at this point that I saw Henning tapping his foot, which was just about the only detected animation from any of them during the gig.

We then had the familiar Tour De France suite, and I think it was here that I saw some animation from a section of the audience in the stalls down to our left, where four or five people had actually got up and tried to dance in the aisle. This - even if we had been moved to it - would have been perilous in the extreme up in the circle because of the rake (whereby one didn't need to lift one's leg much to be able to stand on the back of the seat in front, and only a fraction more elevation would lead to one treading on the head of the person sitting in it) and the steps. I decided to sit this one out, but bully for those who tried downstairs.

The equally familiar Trans Europe Express triptych followed and, although the graphics weren't in any way new, they have always been pleasing to the eye, and so I coasted a bit on that.

The next track was somewhat unexpected, being La Forme from the Tour De France Soundtracks album. This is probably my favourite piece from their post-1978 output, and with a melody which I have always thought sounded like it had Japanese influences; perhaps inspired by Sakamoto-san? The backdrop comprised light blue and white waves which matched the flow of the piece very well.

A quick burst of Planet Of Vision (née Expo 2000), and then...

..."Boing Boom Tschak!", which was the cue for the last number of the night, as a version of the whole of side one of 1986's Electric Café (aka Techno Pop) heralded the approaching end. As has long been the case, in the final section, Musique Non Stop, the band members made their exits; Georg being first (and for some reason, I detected a reluctance in the audience to applaud, although everyone did join in eventually), taking his bow and retreating backstage stage left; then Falk (who is probably the tallest of them) and Henning. This left the Werkmeister himself alone stage right to carry on noodling for a minute before he announced, "Gute Nacht!", made his way across to stage left and took his bows, the first rather stiffly and the second with his hand across his heart.

At this point I felt that a standing ovation was required, if only for old time's sake. Unfortunately, I found myself struggling to get my balance, and feared plummeting into the bloke sitting in front of me. I steadied myself by leaning against the back of my own seat and the moment passed.

But, I thought, something's missing here. Where were the Robots? The thought of a Kraftwerk gig without them was somewhat unsettling, and I said as much to Tez and Wendy. "Just wait a minute", was their sage advice. I then remembered that review in the Guardian, and that there would be an encore, another break from the usual pattern.

Sure enough, after a minute or so, back they came onto the stage. Not the mechanical mannikins of previous years, but the band itself. In the brief interlude, they had changed from the famous dark grey 'Tron' suits into...red 'Tron' suits, to match the Man Machine colours worn by Tez and myself, which I thought was very considerate of them.

At the end, with another warm ovation, our heroes left the stage once more and the house lights came up. We stumbled up the steps and out into the upper foyer, and I wondered what that young lad from Cheltenham had thought of it all.

Having tottered down the stairs and out into the night, we made our way back down through Queen Square and on to the car park (passing the inevitable hawkers of knock-off merch). I was left with a lot to ponder. Why had I felt so disconnected from what I had been hearing and seeing? OK, the volume was like being hit in both ears by socks full of sand, and there was little new or even innovative in what had been served to us, but I wasn't sure - and I still am not - why I would feel so jaded (Wendy and Tez had been perfectly happy with the show; indeed, they were going to see them again in Liverpool two nights later). Perhaps it was the strong impression that that was the last time I would see Kraftwerk live and that this was, indeed, their unannounced auf wiedersehn, their last lap of the circuit, their final tootle down Autobahn 55? Or maybe it was the realisation that even the mightiest machines fall to the bludgeon of rust and decay?

Or perhaps I'm just getting old.

Postscript: I did take photos during the gig, but these were just for reference points to the setlist. I knew they would be no good for anything else (and some of them weren't even of any use for their intended purpose), since I have a terrible tremble in my hands when I try to take photos with my phone. I'll leave you instead with one of Tez's pics.

(Kraftwerk playing Techno Pop at the Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, 21 May 2026. © Tez Burke 2026)

File under: Music