"The Man Machine" live. How I got disappointed in Kraftwerk for the first time.

Ever since 1986 when my music teacher in highschool played Radioactivity I've been in love with the music and musical art by Kraftwerk. In retrospective I experienced and bought almost all their music  on vinyl and CD. The first opportunity to see them live was during their "The Mix"-tour in 1991 in the old Vredenburg Utrecht. At that moment Wolfgang Flur had already left the band due to artistic disagreements. Eventually Karl Bartos left the band after this tour while Florian Schneider remained a member until 2008. Unfortunate but after their album "Electric Café" (currently re-issued with the more suitable title "Techno Pop") they've only really re-invented themselves on the sort of best of album "The Mix". Their first performance I attended after the minimization of the band to Ralf Hütter and 3 extra's was in Randers (Denmark). Amazing, as this was one of the first gigs where they used 3D-images but only for a half of their show. In 2013 I saw them again 3 shows in a row with a full 3D-show in Eindhoven (NL) and Reykjavik (IS). Although their setlist was the same and they had some technical difficulties they electrorocked and amazed me again and again.   

After their "catalogue"-performances in e.g. New York and London in 2015 they would bring the catalogue to Paradiso in Amsterdam. Eight nights in a row performing one album integral a night with "some" extra's. During their performances in 2013 I got especially aroused by the live-version of "Space Lab" so when choosing which album I really wanted to see, hear and experience as a whole it would be "The Man Machine". I guess the real-diehard Kraftwerk-fans who attended the whole series of eight concerts weren't that bothered but I was devastated and annoyed by the setlist. What supposed to be an integral performance of "The Man machine" from A to Z was in fact "The Man Machine" on shuffle in a jukebox. Expecting The Robots they started off with the last song of the album "The Man Machine" followed by the second song "Space Lab". Next up? "The Model" and "Neon Lights" to close off the album-performance with "Metropolis" and still no "The Robots". It took almost 1,5 hours until finally the heroes of the album came on stage.. for ONE song. Apparently Kraftwerk decided they wanted to have one thing in common for every show: starting their encore with "The Robots". It actually ruined my whole night and Kraftwerk really disappointed me for the first time. The extended version of "Autobahn" and yet again goosebumps during "Radioactivity" couldn't make up for that. I would not have bought myself this ticket if I had known.. Even fans can experience artistic disagreements with Ralf Hütter.