Kraftwerk: Computer World

It's been over thirty years since my long-suffering family endured the holiday in the Lake District where I insisted on (repeatedly) playing Kraftwerk's 22 minute long song 'Autobahn' in the car. Apart from this captive audience, however, Kraftwerk were a private passion of mine; with the exception of my friend Darren, who liked 'The Model', I didn't know anyone else who liked them.

The Golden Age of their career ended in 1981, long before their their reputation took off and they only released two more albums in the next twenty years, one of which was a re-working - or, perhaps, a re-werking* - of existing material.

With only one member of the group that made their best albums left, the band have taken a retrospective position in their career, currently playing gigs in museums and galleries. In each set of eight dates, they play one album in full each night and then play a selection of of tracks from the other albums.

Last night I went along with three friends to to the 'Computer World' set (although the band also played the whole of 'Man Machine'. It was the oddest gig I've ever been to, not least because the number of tickets was very limited. It's not often you see a band of Kraftwerk's stature and such an expensive show with just a few hundred other people.

I got this shot during Autobahn. The chap on the left is Ralf Hütter, the last of the original members. The version played was just a modest 12 minutes :-)

*I'm so sorry