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On this day, 9 September 1975, German pioneering electronic band Kraftwerk played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre.
Kraftwerk (German pronunciation: [ˈkʁaftvɛɐ̯k], lit. "power plant") were formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the genre.
The group began as part of West Germany's experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. Wolfgang Flür joined the band in 1973 and Karl Bartos in 1975, expanding the band to a quartet.
The year 1975 saw a turning point in Kraftwerk's live shows. With financial support from Phonogram Inc., in the US, they were able to undertake a tour to promote the Autobahn album, a tour which took them to the US, Canada and the UK for the first time.
The tour also saw a new, stable, live line-up in the form of a quartet. Hütter and Schneider continued playing keyboard synthesizers such as the Minimoog and ARP Odyssey, with Schneider's use of flute diminishing. The two men started singing live for the first time, and Schneider processing his voice with a vocoder live. Wolfgang Flür and new recruit Karl Bartos performed on home-made electronic percussion instruments. Bartos also used a Deagan vibraphone on stage. The Hütter-Schneider-Bartos-Flür formation remained in place until the late 1980s and is now regarded as the classic live line-up of Kraftwerk. Emil Schult generally fulfilled the role of tour manager.
After the 1975 Autobahn tour, Kraftwerk began work on a follow-up album, Radio-Activity (German title: Radio-Aktivität). After further investment in new equipment, the Kling Klang Studio became a fully working recording studio.
The group used the central theme in radio communication, which had become enhanced on their last tour of the United States. With Emil Schult working on artwork and lyrics, Kraftwerk began to compose music for the new record. Even though Radio-Activity was less commercially successful than Autobahn in the UK and United States, the album served to open up the European market for Kraftwerk, earning them a gold disc in France. Kraftwerk made videos and performed several European live dates to promote the album. With the release of Autobahn and Radio-Activity, Kraftwerk left behind avant-garde experimentation and moved towards the electronic pop tunes for which they are best known.
