Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Kraftwerk Superfans In Düsseldorf + 3-D Catalogue Box Set Review

Review of 3-D Catalogue & Düsseldorf

Greetings germs, Germans and everyone else. We're here today to yack at you about topics near and dear to us - specifically us in Düsseldorf for Kraftwerk's July 1 2017 Tour de France concert. That and the just-released 3-D The Catalogue box set that will put a dent in your bank account and a smile on your face assuming that you can still smile after the dent. And what a dent it is ... especially if you're a superfan and must have all the formats. For those with OCD completist compulsions you'll be on the hook for:

3-D The Catalogue on Blu Ray $170
3-D The Catalogue on Vinyl $100
3-D The Catalogue on CD $45
Kraftwerk Panties $10

Be thankful that you didn't brave the merchandise lines at the concert to buy these. The vinyl box set there was €160 which when converted to our paltry dollars is $190. I know this because our pal Les was at the show and was 100% sure that the box set was €60 - so we braved the crushing merch line in which everyone pressed forward into a compounded crowd-smash which provided great insight into why there's so many crowd-crushing fatalities at European kick-ball matches.

I'm going to wildly generalize here and say that European people at concerts and sports matches are quite sociable and love a good dogpile so any excuse to jam up against another person is welcomed. From the perspective of anti-social Americans it's as confusing as the French's love of limburger cheese and explains why we rarely have crowd crushing deaths: we fundamentally don't like each other very much. But I digress.  We got to the sales counter only to discover Les somehow couldn't see the 1 in front of the 60 but I did experience the thrill of a middle aged man grinding on my backside for a few minutes so there's that.

Jennifer and I reviewed the Blu-Ray and LP box sets - or mostly did. This is part one, the unboxing and the chatting and the anecdotes about the unexpected competitive nature of the title Worrrrrld's Biggest Kraftwerk Fans - which we aren't. Watch and learn.

Stay tuned for specifics on what it's like to be granted entry to the former Kling Klang Studios, the thrill of knocking back Killepitsch Kräuterlikör with Kraftwerk's Wolfgang Flür and our attempt to make Tampa Florida look like a possible sister-city pairing for Düsseldorf.

Bonus topic for those who watched the video (above): who is nicer Canadians or Germans? Your vote can be placed with the widget at the top - right corner of this blog.

Until then - buy the 3-D Catalogue Box Set!

The former Kling Klang Studio's intercom.

Not Fritz - this is another superfan wearing a product of his wife's immense sewing skills.

As an aside - if $100 for the Kraftwerk vinyl box set is too spendy to justify or you already have it, why don't you buy this drop-dead lovely NASA Voyager Golden Record Box Set for about the same amount of your rapidly depreciating currency? Isn't it nice to have options?