Robot suffers heart attack

[KeithPratt]

Kraftwerk's Fritz Hilpert suffered heart failure, and as such they had to cancel their Melbourne show. Apparently he's already out of hospital.

Get well soon Fritz.

Talking of German electronic pioneers, Moritz Von Oswald also suffered a stroke last month as well.

[Diamond Dog]

Shit, I thought you meant Planty had succumbed.........

[La Denim]

Kraftwerk's Fritz Hilpert suffered heart failure, and as such they had to cancel their Melbourne show. Apparently he's already out of hospital.

Get well soon Fritz.

Talking of German electronic pioneers, Moritz Von Oswald also suffered a stroke last month as well.

Yeah, hope he's on the mend.

[Slim]

Shit, I thought you meant Planty had succumbed.........

And I though you meant Smithy had succumbed....

[James R]

Just as well I wasn't planning on going to that festival Kraftwerk are playing at anyway, I suppose. Hope he's OK.

[ConnyOlivetti]

the danger of rock'n roll lifestyle

they really need to move around more on stage

[trans-chigley express]

Just as well I wasn't planning on going to that festival Kraftwerk are playing at anyway, I suppose. Hope he's OK.

Well he looked fine at the Hong Kong concert last night.

Interesting gig although the crowd were intensely annoying. I was near the stage but stood behind a bunch of American students recording the gig on their digital cameras so I had the watch the first three tracks on a 1 inch screen . Finally they moved away to record the show from a different angle allowing me a few moments of unobscured view before Yau Ming stood directly in front of me . Forced to move I ended up next to a loud mouthed German screaming for "Die Roboter" every minute and smoking cigarettes while his demented girlfriend danced like a dervish smashing her arms in my face .

Fortunately she decided to get up on stage at the intro to The Model and was promptly hauled away along with her boyfriend after security spotted smoke drifting onto the stage. He never did get to see “Die Roboter”. I was able to enjoy the second half of the gig without further interference.

I found the show itself quite fascinating. Four guys behind consoles each with completely different characters. Ralf Hütter seemed to be really into the music and was the only one apparently doing anything live as he sang and played the melodies on a keyboard. Henning Schmitz didn’t seem to do much other than press a few buttons but had an amused smirk on his face for the whole concert as if he couldn’t believe people had paid HK$700 to watch him stand behind a console.

A fully recovered Fritz Hilpert had a look of intense concentration as he twiddled with knobs. Stefan Pfaffe (Schneider’s replacement) didn’t even pretend to do anything other than stand there looking surly except when he momentarily broke into a huge grin mid way through when Hilpert apparently cracked a joke. Stefan may have been responsible for starting the visuals at the right moment as that was when he seemed most ‘active’ pressing an enter key or something on his laptop.

They were inevitably replaced by robots before returning with their groovy neon suits. Can’t help feeling that I never actually saw a live show at all (Music Non Stop continued as they all left the stage one by one) but I enjoyed it as a piece of theatre. Probably wouldn’t go again but I’m glad I saw them once.

[king feeb]

a loud mouthed German screaming for "Die Roboter" every minute and smoking cigarettes while his demented girlfriend danced like a dervish smashing her arms in my face .

Fortunately she decided to get up on stage at the intro to The Model and was promptly hauled away along with her boyfriend after security spotted smoke drifting onto the stage. He never did get to see “Die Roboter”.