Earlier this summer, iconic Teutonic electronic combo, Kraftwerk, brought their signature robotic schtick to Radio City Music Hall (in 3D, no less) for an evening of crystaline meccanik reverie. Sadly, I was not able to attend. More to the tragic point, I’ve never witnessed Kraftwerk live (although I’ve scribbled about them here several times, notably here, here and more recently here). I love their records, but the opportunities to see them perform are usually rare, exclusive and often expensive. C’est la guerre, I suppose.
Time was, however, when the band was less of a revered institution and more of an ascendent anomaly. As such, when the Deutscher droids came to New York City in 1981, they played a now-legendary show at the Ritz on East 11th Street (now Webster Hall). I was actually already aware of the band, by this point (having picked up a copy of Computer World on the strength of covertly hearing Man-Machine courtesy of the record collection of the enimatic teenage daughter of a friend of my mother’s, as recounted here), but I was still only 14 years old, at the time, and not able to attend. True to the tagline on the ad below, I missed the show and was summarily less-the-cooler for it.
I love that tickets for it were available at Fiorucci. Below the ad is the recoding of said gig. The photo above, meanwhile, also comes from that Ritz show, catpured by Laura Levine.
Enjoy!
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