Wolfgang Flür - Kraftwerk: I Was A Robot

In January 2013, the former robot went to the bands home town show in the Dsseldorf museum K 20 and sent us this report, a longer version of a piece originally published in Germany earlier this year.

It was early morning when I got into bed on Sunday 20th January. It had been many years since my last appearance with Kraftwerk in the summer of 1981 at Dsseldorfs Philips Hall. But on this night, thirty-two years later, I had met up with some friends, one from the Netherlands, two from England, one from Cologne and Rdiger Esch, the bassist from the German industrial band Die Krupps. And we had gone to see Kraftwerk Mark III. In a museum!

Rdiger had contacts at the main sponsor of this concert, the Dsseldorf Stadtwerke power plant, which produces our citys electricity. (Since when did Kraftwerk need sponsors, I wondered? As far as I remember they function economically. Automatically!) Rdiger brought us into the gallery via a side door for VIPs tres chic so we didnt need to queue with the long row of fans in that minus-degree-night. We got a desirable, white all-access pass that allowed us to go anywhere in the hall apart from the garage where the robots were. And inside the foyer, I immediately saw Emil Schult, my former friend and room mate at Berger Alley 9 [where Karl Bartos and Flr lived in the 1970s], crossing my path, looking very stressed and austere. He saw me and looked away.

So, he was still in cahoots with Ralf. I understood why he didnt want to be recognised by me, after all the testimonies he had made against me and all that had happened at the Hamburg land court [Ralf and Florian tried to stop Flr publishing his memoirs in 2000].

Inside the huge hall it was stinky and muggy there had been a show that night already, and we were to see the second one. The midnight special. We Germans call it the ghost hour.

And then came Kraftwerk Mark III. The music they made was very loud so much so that I was afraid for my ears and of a brand-new level of tinnitus. But the sound was brilliant, crispy and digitally clear.

To the left of me and my friends was a group of English and Dutch fans, rampaging, drunk and bawling. The guys stank like Schnapps and bawled Kraftwerk lyrics along with Ralf and his vocoder-device. While she was dancing, a female member of their party kicked me hard on my left foot, so I shouted at her to be calm and well mannered. After all, we were in a museum, not a rock-concert arena. She apologised, but soon went on with bawling. The smell in that area was such a ghastly mixture disgusting! I know why I normally avoid such events.

But the graphic projections in 3D were a hit. Sensationally clear and near. During Kometenmelodie it felt like you could grab the space capsules coming out of the screen. During Musique Non Stop the music notes I knew from so long ago came flying towards us, beautiful and smooth. I was able to grab one and put it in my jacket as a souvenir.

But I have to report that there was nothing else for me to admire that night.

So much I remembered had changed from the appearances we made during the 70s and the 80s, although I understand that todays Kraftwerk fans wont be able to sense this. But we used to move; these robots dont. The non-performance of Kraftwerk Mark III made me yawn; the concert went on too long. Thirty minutes less might have worked, perhaps. But this performance as Kraftwerk seemed to offer no joy to the four people who had to be Kraftwerk.

They didnt even look at each other. There was not one spark between the figures. No magnetism left. Coldness came over me. What had happened? Was it the effect of the two concerts, one after the other? Were they possibly overworked, or overwrought? Can robots generally be overwrought? Ralf seemed to me to be completely absent. His voice was thin, short of breath, and he looked broken. I have other images of Ralf in memory though fortunately.

The passion was gone, the lights were out. I can imagine why Florian bade his farewell to the bondage and dictatorship of his original partner. He didnt want this any more, thats my view. One of my friends lent over during the show and said, Listen Wolfgang, actually YOU should go and stand on the stage as the second figure from the right. Ralph from Cologne replied to him, in protest, Are you crazy? Our Wolfi between those ghosts onstage? No way! He feels much better today than ever before after all, he is free, right?

I had to smile, because he was right. Then another of my companions one a little younger than me whispered this: Those neoprene suits on those tummiesthey look awkward, right? On top of that, theyre sweating inside. And then they are standing for a long time. Two shows, one after the other They could get varicose veins at their age.

I had to laugh loudly, and add: Those plastic trousers already have the effect of surgical stockings. Maybe thats why they wear them.

Now we both had to laugh. Nevertheless, I find it pretty courageous that Ralf, one year older than me, stands on stages worldwide in a Spiderman costume. I can only hope that he has several for changing into during tours.

The whole spectacle appeared to me like a final farewell tour. The guy [Stefan Pfaffe] who replaced Florian three years ago has latterly been replaced by a figure whose name is hard to remember [Falk Grieffenhagen], and the turnover of music-workers is occurring quicker and quicker. At Ralfs age, if he has become Grot the alerter of the machines in Fritz Langs Metropolis he may find it harder and harder to discover fresh cogs who agree to examination. In some ways, Kraftwerks story has become a bit like Goethes Zauberlehring, The Sorcerers Apprentice. The sorcerer activated something powerful all those years ago, and maybe now he cant stop it. The musique is Non-Stop. The Volkswagen runs and runs and runs and runs

Last night, Kraftwerk Mark III certainly did something with effective technique. But is that always best?

After the concert, when the lights came on, things got crazy in the foyer. Quite a few people recognised and assembled around me, and wanted to have all sorts of things signed. Girls were there too and these girls were young. Did we formerly have female fans? I cannot remember this

To conclude, I can genuinely see how this was a superb night in many ways, and I loved the 3D-video projections. But however brilliant and perfect yesterdays spectacle was, all in all, I still must say:

Its no more fun to compute!

And it used to be fun. Onstage in the 70s and 80s, in that pioneering era, it felt good in our hearts as well as our heads. No visitor or fan could imagine it being that way yesterday. If the show was a film Id think of it this way as Jaws part III in 3D (without Florian/Spielberg).

The remaining commander should at least replace himself with a new construction (everyone is replaceable, Ralf once said) and send those four fresh figures around the world (White Shark, part IV). Then he would not need to suffer. In fact, he looked stressed on stage, sad, endlessly lonely. So hard without his Flori

I met this Flori recently, on a cross-road at Berlin Alley, while waiting for the green pedestrian light. Florian was passing by in a tiny British car. Noticing me, he threw a smile through his side window. I waved to him. His face looked peaceful and relaxed. He seemed to have escaped from the Kraftwerk stigma.

Like me.

D SSELDORF , 1 J ANUARY 1999

What a magical number this New Year represents to us! For me, its much more exciting than the next one the one with so many noughts at the end of it that is causing people to panic so much. On New Years Eve, I had dressed up warmly and taken a long, thoughtful walk along the Rhine to the north of Dsseldorf in order to get a feeling for the approaching new age. In the late afternoon of New Years Day, I was still lying in my warm bed, dozing comfortably, when I suddenly began to think about the meaning of life, of my life. It was not the first time that I had done this, but I have rarely seen with such clarity. I thought about the work on my new album with Yamo, which is dedicated solely to the subject of great merriment. I also remembered previous years, following my voluntary departure from Kraftwerk, some of which were not easy to deal with. Was it uncomfortable for me to cope? Had I only dealt with my life in general terms? Will I just put it behind me one way or another? Or do I enjoy dealing with this? What makes me happy? Many search for happiness in a binding partnership, sticking so closely to another person because life terrifies them so much that they always need someone to hold onto when they are living it.