An abrupt shock came in October 1997, when lead singer Herbert Dreilich suffered a stroke on stage in Magdeburg. He survived the event, but returned to performance only after a full year of recuperation and songwriting. Afterward, Karat's pace slowed considerably. In 2000, the band released the compilation Ich liebe jede Stunde (I Love Every Hour), consisting of a few remakes, a few new songs, and some of its most popular older material remastered. The band's 25th anniversary was celebrated in front of a crowd of 20,000 people in Berlin, with former first keyboardist Ulrich "Ed" Swillms making a guest re-appearance, and sharing the stage with the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg and Peter Maffay. A year later recordings from this concert were released as a live album and DVD, titled 25 Jahre Karat - Das Konzert (25 Years of Karat - The Concert). The 2003 album Licht und Schatten (Light and Shadow) was to be Dreilich's last personally completed effort (notably, it contained one of only two Karat songs ever recorded in English, "Someone Got Hurt," a demo from 1983 that may have been a reference to Dean Reed). In 2004, a tour with The Puhdys and City was cancelled at the last minute when Dreilich was diagnosed with liver cancer. He died that December, at the age of 62. thumb|left|230px|Karat in concert.
