Twenty years ago, a reviewer for the Britain’s New Music Express argued that the German electronic band Kraftwerk – currently in the midst of a nine-night residency at Walt Disney Concert Hall – was one of the two most influential bands in rock history.
The other? The Beatles.
You can debate that – you can debate anything in rock and roll – but considering the German group’s influence on bands such as New Order and Daft Punk, and genres including techno and house music, his point was solid.
Two decades later, watching Kraftwerk perform all of its third album, “Trans-Europe Express,” and songs from across the other seven albums (each album gets its own night in Los Angeles this month), I’m happy to stick my neck out and argue that Kraftwerk is even more influential than the Beatles when it comes to the music of the 2020s.
Look at Coachella, or many other festivals, where electronic rock and dance music dominates the lineup and guitar-bass-and-drums bands are few and far between. Look at the way modern pop music is created more often by producers who’ve mastered the digital wizardry of the studio.
Listen to Kraftwerk on stage at Disney Hall during this run, and hear sounds, sometimes specific Kraftwerk samples, found in tracks created by artists as diverse as Coldplay and Dr. Dre, LCD Soundsystem and Blondie.
In the 50 years since Kraftwerk released “Autobahn,” which opened this residency on Tuesday, the alchemy they discovered – coaxing beauty and emotion from cold, lifeless technology – has filtered down through hip-hop and post-punk, synth-pop and ambient music and more.
At 8 p.m. sharp, Ralf Hütter, Kraftwerk’s co-founder and lone remaining original member, walked on stage followed by Henning Schmitz, who shares keyboard and computer duties with Hütter, and live-video operators Falk Grieffenhagen and Georg Bongartz.
Hütter and the late co-founder Florian Schneider believed a performance should be a total work of art – Gesamtkunstwerk, in German, which has a word for everything – and so a Kraftwerk performance places sounds and visuals on equal footing.
The opening number, a medley of “Numbers,” “Computer World,” and “Computer World 2,” made that clear.
For “Numbers,” a giant wall of green numerals swirled and shifted on the huge screen behind the four musicians, the LED lights that crisscrossed their suits from neck-to-toe morphing in sync with the screen and the lights on the podiums that held their gear. As “Computer World” began, the screen changed to strings of eight numerals scrolling rapidly behind them, their suits and computer and keyboard stands now in yellow.
Animations accompanied other videos. For “Spacelab,” the audience flew from far above the planet down into Los Angeles where, to the cheers of the sold-out crowd, our animated flying saucer landed on Grand Avenue in front of an image of Walt Disney Concert Hall.
“The Man-Machine,” the title track of the album Kraftwerk featured on Friday, May 25, shifted into a harder groove, the sound here, as throughout the night, remarkably precise, the bass notes rumbling the high melodies crisp and clear.
It was followed by “Autobahn,” which reached No. 25 on the charts in 1975, so you can imagine Casey Kasem introducing it on “American Top 40” if you like. It was accompanied by the same animation the band used a decade ago during a similar four-night residency at Disney Hall. Images of old Volkswagen Beetles and Mercedes-Benz sedans cruising down the German highway screened as the band played its gentle, transporting melodies.
Other highlights of the first hour included “The Model,” the deadpan vocals and ominous synths surely inspired new wave and post-punk acts such as Ultravox, Depeche Mode, Joy Division and New Order. “Radioactivity,” the title track of the album spotlighted on Wednesday, May 22, combined sounds and images of its dual meanings, radio transmissions and nuclear fusion.
And “Tour de France,” for which the merch stand had sold out all its T-shirts except for 2XL, remains as beloved as that fact suggests. (The line for merch, which included T-shirts specific to each album’s night of performance, was the longest I’ve seen at Disney Hall, though I’ll admit I’ve never seen the Dudamel stans in line for his swag there. Still, probably not as many as for Kraftwerk.)
“Trans-Europe Express” arrived almost 70 minutes into the hour and 55-minute set, with no introduction other than a slightly longer pause and dimming of the screen between songs. Still, its title track is one of the most-loved and memorable numbers in Kraftwerk’s catalog, and fans cheer from the opening surge of synthesizers.
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Unlike most full album shows, Kraftwerk changed the running order of the record, essentially playing side two first – the title track, “Metal on Metal,” “Abzug,” and “Franz Schubert,” before flipping to side one and “Europe Endless,” “The Hall of Mirrors,” and “Showroom Dummies.”
That actually worked for the best. “Trans-Europe Express” and the three that followed are soaring and symphonic compositions, and as black-and-white stylized animations of the train of the title track played behind the band, you sank deeply into the mood it evoked. At one point, maybe during “Franz Schubert,” musical notation took the place of train tracks, both of them parallel lines, and I found myself reading the notes of the melody as it played.
Side two, by contrast, offers more structured songs, with “Hall of Mirrors” featuring an almost spy movie vibe, and “Showroom Dummies,” which was followed by “The Robots,” from “Man-Machine Music.”
At the close of a medley of “Non Stop,” “Boing Boom Tschak,” and Musique Non Stop,” the band played itself off the stage as one by one, members departed with a bow, until only Hütter remained.
With the only words spoken from the stage all night – good night and auf wiedersehen, its German equivalent – he bowed once, and as the crowd leaped to their feet to applaud, bowed again, placed his hand over his heart, and was gone.