only concert
Power plant with a total work of art in Karlsruhe
The band Kraftwerk at a concert in Bonn in 2022. photo
© Henning Kaiser/dpa
All 16,000 tickets were sold in no time: The electro-pop pioneers from Kraftwerk want to do the honors on a stage in Germany exactly once this year.
The legendary electropop band On Saturday, August 12th, Kraftwerk will be playing their only German concert this year in front of the Karlsruhe Palace. 16,000 tickets were quickly sold out.
The organizers promise a total work of art made up of performance and music: “While the power plants are positioned on the balcony of the Karlsruhe Palace, 16 high-performance projectors, which have already been set up for the Schlosslichtspiele, project the multimedia show for the concert onto the 170-metre-wide palace façade.” During the Castle Light Show, which takes place from August 16th to September 17th, works of art shine on the walls of the baroque castle.
The Kraftwerk project was created in 1970 in the context of the experimental art scene in Düsseldorf. The band wrote music history and was style-defining for directions such as electro, synth pop, minimal and techno. She became known with plays like “Autobahn” and “Das Model”. From the original cast, only Ralf Hütter (76) is there.
The worldwide fame the artists have achieved is reflected in awards such as a Grammy for lifetime achievement in 2014. In 2021 the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
The fact that Kraftwerk are performing in Karlsruhe goes back to an artistic and friendly bond between Hütter and Peter Weibel, the artistic and scientific director of the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (ZKM) for many years. He died in March this year at the age of 78. According to the ZKM, the two men had been working on the concept for the multimedia performance at the castle until shortly before his death.