Bike-mad band raise the bar

Kraftwerk at the Manchester Velodrome

Manchester International Festival could hardly have pulled off a more unusual coup than to put Kraftwerk and the city's Velodrome together last night.

The legendary German quartet have long been known as devotees of cycling ‚ in fact, they seem to have spent more time cycling than recording new music over the last 25 years.

Even so, to have some of Britain's world-conquering cyclists as guests of honour, racing round the track while the band played, was breathtaking and in a different league. It didn't matter to ticket sales: the gig was sold out long ago.

Kraftwerk were pioneers of electronic music, and made a series of world-shifting albums in the Seventies and Eighties. We hear that technology has caught up with them, but the old boys from Dusseldorf still know how to put on a show.

To see Kraftwerk these days is mainly a visual experience, and not only because Ralf Hutter is the only remaining member. But their vision, as first espoused on the 1978 album "The Man-Machine", is unaltered. Kraftwerk still believe in the ultimate merge between the two species: as evinced not only by their opening song "Man Machine", but also perhaps by their obsession with cycling, the most human-friendly form of transport there is. How much the band actually play live is a moot point, and is probably even more so these days, when they (apparently) trigger samples rather than in the old days when they played keyboard melodies and hit synth drums with knitting needles. But this is certainly no triumph of style over substance.

What has always lain beneath the surface is the human heart of the machine. Kraftwerk, for all their techno pioneering, are German romantics at heart. Listen to the classical refrains of "Neon Lights", the neo-classicism of "Trans-Europe Express", the humour of their German Beach Boys stylings of "Autobahn" - this says as much about the band as the inhuman grind of "The Robots" or, on this occasion, the very apt and relentless two-wheel thrust of "Tour De France".

Then they introduce a novel turn, handing out 3-D glasses for the last few numbers. "Numbers" and "Vitamin" fairly flew before the eye, which helped bring the band closer (the Velodrome is not the most user-friendly or comfortable of venues for a gig).

Who knows when Kraftwerk will return? They're not the youngest of robo-bunnies, and their idea of a perfect gig is probably one which takes place inside your head. If that's the theme for the next album, whenever if at all that might be, it'll certainly be worth listening and seeing to.