Kraftwerk - Live In London 1981

This is Kraftwerk live at the Hammersmith Odeon, London, on the 3rd July 1981.

This is one of those annoying 'I was there' posts, yep that may be me somewhere in the crowd cheering, applauding or yelping, and why not, it was one of the best live concerts I have ever attended - not a comment I make lightly!


Everything about them was refreshing.

Ralf Hutter's occasional ad lib's and his sheer intensity at times as he sung.

The use of electronic drum pads, and the whole tightness & rhythm of the band.

The simpler & very different lighting for that period, a generous helping of neon would you believe?

The uncanny resembling dummies, or was that robots?

Letting the audience join in during the encore using handheld devices (circa pocket calculator).

Most of all it was the underlying humour, the knowing smiles between each other that became laughter if one of them got something wrong. I expected technical efficiency, I got a band playing live and rocking in their own style.

This was part of the Computer World tour, and is summarised well from the current Wikipedia entry - "the band effectively packed up its entire Kling Klang studio and took it on the road with them. The band also developed an increasing use of visual elements in the live shows during this period. This included back-projected slides and films, increasingly synchronized with the music as the technology developed, an experimental light-beam activated drum cage allowing Flür to trigger electronic percussion through arm gestures, use of hand-held miniaturized instruments during the set, and, perhaps most famously, the use of replica mannequins of themselves to perform onstage during the song "The Robots."

I actually only received a copy of this specific concert recently, I am delighted with the sound quality. The set list is:

1 Intro - Numbers
2 Computer world
3 Computer love
4 Home computer
5 The model
6 Neon lights
7 Radioactivity
8 The voice of energy
9 Ohm sweet ohm
10 Autobahn
11 Hall of mirrors
12 Showroom dummies
13 Trans Europe Express
14 Pocket calculator
15 The robots
16 It's more fun to compute

I do not have details of the source, its very good audio quality - click on the links to download.

Some Kraftwerk Cd options HERE.

New file link in comments below - Re-uploaded 2012 (Stealth project).