Kraftwerk set to play Birmingham's Symphony Hall

In 1981, when this writer saw them perform at Rock City, Nottingham, the German band’s shows were light years ahead of their contemporaries. The use of video backdrop imagery. though commonplace now, was revolutionary at the time. They even played one number using pocket calculators. So, the idea of incorporating 3D technology into their live shows would seem to be a natural progression for the four-piece.

The Kraftwerk 3D live extravaganza arrives in Birmingham on Tuesday and, even though only one original member of the band, Ralf Hütter, is in the current line-up, interest in Kraftwerk has never been more intense in recent years, with tickets for the group’s concerts, in venues as diverse as London’s Tate Modern Turbine Hall, New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Bilbao’s Museo Guggenheim, selling out within hours of going on sale.

These days, Hütter shares the stage with Falk Grieffenhagen, Henning Schmitz and Fritz Hilpert, with the latter pair having spent more than 25 years behind the keyboards as Kraftwerk members.

Kraftwerk’s origins go back to 1968, when Hütter and Florien Schneider-Esleben, who had met while studying improved music at the Dusseldorf Conservatory, joined the art-rock band, The Organisation.

By the turn of the decade, the pair had their own studio, Kling Klang, offering them the platform upon which to experiment with newly-emerging electronic instruments. The group’s first two eponymously-titled albums, followed by Ralf Und Florian, laid the foundations for a series of releases, beginning with Autobahn in 1974, that would have a radical influence on a range of musical genres.

The title track of Autobahn is an epic piece spread across side one of the album. It offers a musical backdrop to a journey through a German landscape that moves from the rhythm of the mundanity of motorway driving to the chaos of urban motoring, via the serenity of cruising through the countryside. Indeed, while the Beach Boys cruised along highways in search of “Fun, Fun, Fun,” Kraftwerk echo this with the song’s opening line, “Wir farhr’n, fahr’n, fahr’n auf der Autobahn.”

And while the TV debut for most groups at that time would have been Top Of The Pops, Kraftwerk were introduced to the British viewing public on another Thursday evening staple – BBC’s Tomorrow’s World – in September 1975, with a commentary by Derek Cooper that, this being a science programme, of course, explained that Autobahn had been created in a ‘laboratory’ rather than a studio. This appearance would later be recognised by The Guardian newspaper as the No.1 key event in the history of dance music.

The group’s influence on popular culture has been immense. When Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force sampled Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express and Numbers on Planet Rock in 1982, it proved to be a turning point in hip-hop, while Underworld’s Karl Hyde told this writer 10 years ago that: “Kraftwerk came along and made synth pop weird and cool. Hearing Autobahn was a transformation for me and that record was unlike anything that was being played on the radio.”

Visually, Kraftwerk’s use of video backdrops is now a feature of most live shows and, along with the group’s static onstage presence, this has had a profound influence on live performances by artists like Blue Man Group, who will be visiting Birmingham later this year.

It may be 14 years since Tour De France Soundtracks, Kraftwerk’s last studio album, but the release of The Catalogue3-D provides listeners with a taste of what to expect at the Symphony Hall on Tuesday.

l For tickets www.thsh.co.uk

Stephen Taylor