Tuesday night (April 10), comics and musicians took stage at Littlefield to pay tribute to Kraftwerk since numerous fans were unable to get tickets to see one of the German band's eight performances, with each set dedicated to an entire album.
Tickets to the MoMA shows sold out within minutes with many people unable to progress past the “you are waiting in the queue” screen. Each Kraftwerk Condensed performer covered one Kraftwerk song (Vaz was the lone exception by performing two) and all were sung in English, except for Vaz and Corn Mo who sang in German. Dan Friel (ex-Parts and Labor), Pterodactyl's Matt Marlin and Jonas Reinhart's Jesse Reiner served as the house band for the solo performers. Jounce's Danny Tamberelli joined on bass for “Metropolis,” which featured Todd Colby on vocals. Julie Cafritz & Kim Gordon's Free Kitten was billed as Free Kitten[esque] since their usual drummer (Yoshimi-P) was replaced by Magik Markers' Pete Nolan for their cover of a bootleg only song, “Heavy Metal Kids.” The show ended with Kraftwerk's most well-known song, “The Model,” having its lyrics projected on screen for the audience to sing along. Overall, an extremely fun night and I left Littlefield grateful that I missed out on the real thing*.
Krautwerk 1-8 Condensed setlist:
Xadaax – “Trans-Europe Express”
Vaz – “Radio-Activity,” “Aerodynamik”
Corn Mo – “The Robots”
Todd Colby – “Metropolis” (preceded with a reading of his poem, “Taking the Bull by the Horns”)
Shonali Bhowmik – “The Hall of Mirrors”
Dave Hill – “Sex Object”
Carla Rhodes – “Showroom Dummies” (quite fitting for a rock 'n roll ventriloquist!)
Kurt Braunohler – “Neon Lights”
Brittain Ashford – “The Telephone Call”
Publicist – “It's More Fun To Compute”
Free Kitten[esque] – “Heavy Metal Kids”
Joe Garden, Shonali Bhowmik, Dave Hill, et al – “The Model”
*As host Joe Garden astutely pointed out, only 1/4th of the original Kraftwerk lineup is playing the MoMA shows for the next week.
