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08/06 - 28/06/2015

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Kraftwerk’s ambitions, forecasts and dreams come true with a delay, but also with exceptional panache. We will find that out during the German band’s performance at Malta Festival Poznań. Mariusz Herma about Kraftwerk in “Polityka”.

It isn’t the band’s first visit to Poland. "We gave a few concerts in Poland in 1981. In such cities as Katowice, Wrocław, Warszawa, we also played outdoors in Gdańsk", recollects Hütter, the 66-year-old leader of Kraftwerk and the last original band member, in his conversation with POLITYKA. His impressive memory should be corrected only slightly (they played in Opera Leśna in Sopot) and rounded out with Opole and Zielona Góra. A concert in Bydgoszcz was also planned, but also there the electronic music was hampered by electrical discharges. It seems to me that all those concerts were organized in cooperation with the people from Solidarity. At least, we felt all the time the energy and enthusiasm of the movement. An extremely valuable experience.

Hütter also remembers that they met a greater number of fans from East Germany than expected. The band’s music was subject to censorship there, because it was associated with the free Federal Republic of Germany. It spread amongst listeners in underground circulation, mainly as illegal cassettes. Any performances were impossible, thus, the most fervent fans followed their idols to Hungary and Poland.
"We gave a concert on the eastern side of the Berlin wall only after the wall had fallen, Hütter adds. Despite that people knew all our pieces by heart. It proved that no concrete wall could stop sound waves."