First of all, who the heck was the guy standing where Florian was supposed to be standing (far right)? I guess Florian (61) finally decided he was too old for this shit and stayed in Germany. Some young, tall, thin guy was there instead. He wasn't Florian! WHERE WAS FLORIAN!?
7:55 "Electronic sounds" (visit www.kraftwerk.com to hear an approximation) just before 8:00, the familiar digital lead singer came over the sound system: "Meine damen und herren - ladies and gentlemen - heute abend - aus Deutschland - die Mensch-Machine: KRAFTWERK"
Set list (which I twittered in semi-real time): The Man Machine Planet of Vision Numbers / Computerworld Homecomputer / It's More Fun to Compute Prologue / Tour de France 2003 (Etape 1, 2 & 3) Tour de France (original) Vitamin Autobahn Computerlove The Model Neon Lights Les Mannequins Radioactivity Trans-Europe Express / Abzug / Metal on Metal curtain
The Robots (by the robots) - It was almost as if they had forgotten to recue their track after sound check as it started in the wrong place - it was quickly reset, but talk about destroying the mystique! Also, they're the same robots from back in 1990, which means they still have a Florian and DON'T have a Henning (and that dude's been with them for, like, 17 years!) not to mention Fritz has a shaved head but his robot doesn't - for that matter, Florian's had a shaved head for eons and HIS robot still has hair. How hard would it be to give them new heads? Okay, I'm obsessing - let's move on
After the second curtain...
Elektro Kardiogramm Aerodynamik Music Non Stop - no solo where Florian's solo would have been, his replacement just took his bow and left without a solo
Out at around 9:45ish - them dudes gotta go to sleep early, you know!
I think they shortened up a bunch of songs to sneak in the two "new" ones (Computerlove and Showroom Dummies), and I missed "Pocker Calculator/Dentaku" but other than that it was almost exactly like the 2004 tour, so if you don't happen to be in Milwaukee, Chicago or Coachella, you could just buy the "Minimum Maximum" DVD (The W at Amazon) and watch it in your own home.
Actually, it might be better that way - I missed ol' Florian, and I could be crazy but things just seemed a little less precise tonight. I guess they DO really play that stuff even though it looks like they're just surfing the 'Net. ;-)
In the Bio I read of Florian, it is said that he dislikes touring, and so he wasn't included on the early part of the 2008 tour. Which seems to all be in the U.S. starting late this past February.
The lineup consist of Ralf Hutter, Henning Schmitz, Fritz Hilpert, and Stefan Pfaffe (video-operator). There aren't official statement from Kraftwerk about why Florian Schneider is not included in the lineup.
I think he was ID'd from the Flickr/Youtube snippets that are already online.
This tour is only four dates over seven days, by the way - here, Milwaukee tonight, Denver Wednesday and Coachella next Saturday. I don't know where you got February dates?
I should probably add that the T-shirt selection was sparse - three black cycling/Aerodynamik logo shirts and one old blue Autobahn logo shirt. I'm pretty sure I could find them out on the Internet for less than the $30 they were asking last night, so I passed. I ALREADY have cooler Kraftwerk T-shirts. :)