The assigned seating felt more like a TED talk than an electronic music concert, as 8,000 people calmly filled Berkeley’s magnificent Greek on Friday night for a one-night-only performance by electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk. After 15 minutes of ambient soundscapes and cryptic, hieroglyphic-style visuals, the four-piece band emerged—suited in glowing, grid-like uniforms—and quietly took their places at futuristic lecterns. Without a word, they launched into “Numbers,” a track from their Grammy-nominated 1982 classic Computer World.
Throughout the evening, the band remained largely motionless—barely any head bobbing, certainly no dancing—allowing their towering LED monolith, screen-adorned platform below them, and luminous suits to carry the visual weight. The graphics reached mesmerizing heights during “The Robots,” where the band appeared as, well, robots, and “The Man-Machine,” with its hypnotic arrangement of kinetic typography. Thanks to the pristine acoustics of the Greek, the sound was just as striking—crisp, calculated, and immersive.
As Kraftwerk subtly tweaked knobs and triggered sequencers with such precision that it seemed almost inhuman, the nearly two-hour show unfolded as a masterclass in electronic performance art.
“We are the robots,” indeed.
Kraftwerk wraps the U.S. leg of their Multimedia tour with two Texas dates before heading to Europe, where the tour runs from June to December.
Previously:
• I saw Kraftwerk’s 3D Tour at Red Rocks Amphitheater a couple of nights ago, and it blew my mind
• Florian Schneider, co-founder of Kraftwerk, RIP
• Fantastic psychedelic video for Kraftwerk’s Autobahn (1979)
