Kraftwerk live in Oslo, August 8th 2006!

At last: yesterday I FINALLY got the chance to see the band that without doubt is THE most influential electronic act throughout the times: KRAFTWERK! Yeah, baby! Ralf and Florian did their thing with Fritz and Henning solidly filling the roles of Wolfgang and Karl (or was it the other way around?). The four old Germans rocked the house - well, shoegazed the house - for a good two hours, running through classic after classic: Man Machine, Computer Love, Radioactivty, Autobahn, Tour De France - they were all there.

Of course, when "The Robots" was finally performed near the end of the concert, the now famous remote-controlled robotic Kraftwerk-lookalikes replaced the quartet to much (and well deserved) applause and cheering from the audience. Speaking of which, the audience was a fascinating mix of young and old, neatly dressed 40-year olds and red-shirt-and-black-tie wearing 30 somethings, goths, rockers and synth-freaks, and the ever present "Look at me, I've got no musical taste, but I go see every major band that plays in this town just so I can wear their official tour T-shirt and tell all my friends I've seen them live!" bunch. Ahem. Nothing personal against you guys, but seriously: an R.E.M tour T-shirt at a Kraftwerk concert? Puhlease...

All in all, this was a great experience: Great sound, great visuals, a sweaty but very enthusiastic audience (I was practically dripping with sweat by the end: Sentrum Scene is HOT during Summer gigs) and the chance (perhaps my only) to see some truly monumental artists within my musical genre of preference. I was grinning like a fool during the whole show, and let me tell you: these days, there are only two things that put a grin like that on my face, and Kraftwerk live is one of them. The other... isn't. ;)