Kraftwerk stun at Trinity College

KRAFTWERK, TRINITY COLLEGE

Since having my mind blown 48-years ago by ‘Autobahn’ – nothing before or since has sounded quite like it – I’ve seen Kraftwerk a dozen times and never not felt giddy with excitement beforehand.

With the reviews of the previous night’s King John’s Castle, Limerick show all of the rave variety and the mercury nudging 20 degrees in Dublin 2, I’m once again like a kid at Christmas morning as I walk through Trinity College’s hallowed portals for this latest encounter with a band whose influence on everyone from Afrika Bambaataa, Bjork and David Bowie to Depeche Mode, Janelle Monae and Daft Punk can’t be overstated.

It's been two decades since their last album of original material, so what you’re getting is a refining of their art, which for the full range of visceral Kraftwerk thrills has to be sampled live.

After the now traditional “Meine Damen und Herren” intro, it’s straight down to electro business with a mash-up of the evergreen ‘Numbers’ and ‘Computer’. As FBI/Interpol/FBI/CIA/Scotland Yard flash up behind them, you’re reminded of how ahead of the curve Kraftwerk were in predicting mass electronic surveillance and what comes next in the form of AI.

‘The Man-Machine’ is the audio equivalent of hiding behind the sofa as a kid when the Cybermen came on Doctor Who – a nightmarish imagining of what happens when the robots gain the upper-hand. Techno at its most totalitarian, it still scares the crap out of me.

The appearance of a VW Beetle on the big screen is the cue for another “fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn” with sunny Germanic uplands traversed at high-speed.

The mid-song tuning of a medium-wave radio is a nod to the original Kraftwerk line-up religiously listening to the American Forces Network to hear Little Richard – ‘Tutti Frutti’ is one of Ralf’s all-time faves – and the other early rock ‘n’ trailblazers on American Forces Radio.

After that comes the triple-pop-whammy of ‘Computer Love’, very possibly the first sexbot love song; ‘The Model’, which is Kraftwerk at their most conventionally melodic and its 1978 flipside (ask your grandparents) ‘Neon Lights’, the nocturnal prowl through Dusseldorf's Hinter der Bahndamm red light district which so beguiled U2 that they did a How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb-era cover of it.

The highlights keep on coming with ‘Radioactivity’ almost a synth ‘Stairway To Heaven’ such are its intricacies, and ‘Trans Europe Express’ prompting an outbreak of mass robotic dad/mum dancing. Replacement hips also swivel to the closing ‘Boing Boom Tschak’/‘Techno Pop’/‘Music Non Stop’ mash-up which acknowledges the impact they had on the cities of New York and Detroit.

As warmly received as it is, it’s worth noting that tonight’s show is almost a carbon copy of the last few times Kraftwek were here. If they're to not start travelling in ever decreasing circles, there has to be new material and a refreshing of the visuals. I still bloody loved every minute of it, though.