Kraftwerk review – after more than half a century of techno supremacy, they still sound like the future

Waterfront Hall, BelfastRalf Hütter and his bandmates show how profound their influence has been on huge swathes of popular music – and they give a tender tribute to the late Ryuichi SakamotoForty-five years ago this month, Kraftwerk released Computer World, an album addressed to a world that hadn’t been built yet. Tonight in Belfast, Ralf Hütter and his bandmates open with three songs from it: Numbers, the title track, Computer World 2 – body-popping electro that the next few decades of music tried to live up to.The opening seconds of Numbers catch oddly: a familiar pause stretching too long, then steadied, then not another slip all night. Fifty-five years since the band formed, the machines still need their man. Hütter, 79 and the last original member since Florian Schneider’s departure in 2008, is more animated than legend has it – a bobbing left leg betraying what the face won’t – feeding melodies into a system he built before most of pop knew what a synthesiser was. Lit from below, Henning Schmitz, Falk Grieffenhagen and Georg Bongartz flank him at lectern-like consoles, as pre-internet polygons and cascading numerals tower behind them. Continue reading...