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Berghain/Panaroma Bar
OK, I am not really know for writing reviews like Graham and usually I am happy enough to simply sum up a party with good friends, good music, good times. Our night/day at Berghain made such an impression that I feel it deserves a full on review since I do think it should be experienced by many of my friends here on TA.
When I had made the decision to make the trip to Germany for Time Warp to meet up with Graham, Paul, and Kate I decided I would stay in Europe for a week to travel. After talking with Graham we decided we would head to Berlin for the week…in all honesty I really didn’t have much of a desire to visit Berlin but figured why not it had a lot of history and we would already be in Berlin. Once the decision was made to go to Berlin I started to look into what we could do when we were there and I remembered reading about this place that was suppose to be like CZ in Berlin…after some research I discovered it was called Berghain. The more I read about this place the more intrigued I became and it soon became the event I was looking forward to the most about the trip (even more so than Time Warp).
For those of you interested here are some links to the articles I read that got me so hyped up for this place.
Website - http://www.berghain.de/berghain/pro...l/programm.html - it is in German but check out their flyers at the least
System install – some of the better pictures on the internet http://www.funktion-one.com/Berghain_Germany_Mondo.htm
This is a link to a place where you can read a pile of reviews and you can read lots of stories about people being turned away - http://www.berlin-life.com/drink/pu..._&_Panorama_Bar
Below is a quote from an article which sums up Berghain quite well.
Beyond its lineups, Berghain is famous for two things: Its space and its libertinism. Housed in a disused power plant, the Berghain complex is an intimidating, post-industrial behemoth boasting a cavernous main room; the more intimate Panoramabar upstairs; cement floors, ceiling, walls and staircases; and dark, meandering passageways and cubbyholes, which unlike their counterparts in the United States, offer zones of total autonomy. Everything is dark; cameras are strictly verboten. (There are also no mirrors in the toilets, a crucial point in facilitating the club's endurance-testing marathon sessions: you might be more inclined to go home if you could see how fucked you looked.)
The basement boasts a "darkroom" space explicitly dedicated to sexual activity, but you hardly need to go that far to find satisfaction, if that's what you seek: Virtually every corner of the club, from the bathrooms to the dancefloor, might serve as a good spot for a tryst. Berghain's reputation for excess is hardly a secret: Even the New York Times style writer and cultural critic Guy Trebay described "live sex taking place on the dance floor beneath the colossal Wolfgang Tillmans photograph at the Berghain disco." (For anyone wanting to understand the full Berghain experience, the disco DJ Daniel Wang's 2004 report of the Panoramabar's reopening is essential and inspiring reading.) But to view Berghain only in sensationalistic terms, as an anything-goes pleasurezone of sex and drugs, is to miss the greater significance of the operation.
Here is the link to the whole article - http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/artic...month-in-techno
I also highly recommend reading the review they mention above (it is very long but it is amazing).
As Graham wrote we did everything we thought we should to get in and in the end we were simply told to step to the left when we got to the front of the line (along with 2 guys in front of us, 4 girls behind us, and 2 other guys behind them). I realized all of the other people were together and told Graham to hang around for a bit until they left. Once we got in we both felt as if it was a privilege to have been let in and for the longest time we both felt we could get a tap on our shoulders and be told to leave.
Once walking in the first thing you see is a huge mural that is etched into the stone (or glass) that immediately makes you feel overwhelmed. The bottom floor has a lot of stone seats and the length of the room is probably close to the size of Guvernment with the said dark room to one end. At the other end by the coat check is the stairs up to the second level (Berghain). In this section there is not second floor so the ceiling goes right up to the top of the building which must be at least 100 feet (30 meters for you Graham). Standing there looking up again you feel overwhelmed by the sheer size of this place.
When you get up to the main floor you suddenly realize that they do not use most of the space. There is more unused space in the club than space that is used. As Graham said we saw the 3 (anorexic chic) young girls dancing on the podium in their underwear…I relaxed a bit because I had feared that Graham may be overwhelmed by the gayness of the club. In fact despite everything we had read and although the club is probably 70% gay it never feels like a gay club because everyone is just doing their own thing and not imposing themselves on others.
Berghain, the main floor is dark, loud, and very smokey (the Germans sure love their smoke machines). We searched out the washroom and headed off there. The stalls in Berghain are pitch black, there is no light, it is scary the first time in there. We later observed that there seemed to be an unwritten rule in Berghain…YOU WILL NOT ENTER A WASHROOM STALL ALONE…YOU MUST BE WITH AT LEAST ONE OTHER PERSON…PREFERABLY 2.
We then went up to Panaroma Bar which is the third floor and the first thing you notice is how bright the room is and that brings a completely different atmosphere to the party. I honestly didn’t think much of this place when we first went up, but as Graham said it ended up being the place to be. The shades being opened and closed when the sun is out and people’s reactions is something special that needs to be experienced.
Music wise Graham summed it up perfectly…Jesse Rose was really good (I talked to him after his set and he commented how bad the set at Circa was and how upset he was that they had closed down the room so early, but he did say he wanted to come back and play some of the other clubs here in Toronto he has heard about)…he finished his set at 6AM and he was still there having fun by the bar at 2PM.
Renato Cohen was exactly what I wanted to hear at that time on the main floor and I was having a blast while Graham was walking around. Graham then came up to me and told me to come upstairs as the room was now going off. That was the understatement of the year thus far. The place was going crazy, everyone was dancing, hugging, singing along to total cheese. It was perfect. We stayed up in Panaroma Bar for the rest of the night as I couldn’t drag myself away despite everything that I had read about Berghain. We stayed until 4PM although I was tempted to stick around until it closed at 8PM just to say we did, but we couldn’t have asked for a better 14 hours at a party.
I had thought DC10 was the best party I had been to and it was amazing with all of its characters. The big difference between DC10 and Berghain with its characters is that you get the feeling that people at DC10 dress up and joke around when they go there. The people at Berghain aren’t dressing up and wearing masks…this is their everyday life.
Random Thoughts
- Huge art work in Panaroma including a 4’x8’ vagina
- Random hug from blonde German as he came up the stairs
- Just because you wear a shirt that says “super cute” doesn’t mean you are super cute
- Trannies of all shapes, sizes, and ages
- The worst trannies I have ever seen (hairy chest, arms, boobs the size of watermelons)
- Seeing a guy in a cubby hole from at least 5am until 2pm…I honestly started to think he was dead since he just wasn’t moving
- No security
- More scarves of guys in one location
- German interpretive dance is funny
- The best staches I have ever seen in my life…I think Graham and I have seen the best possible porn stache
- Guy short circuiting and falling down against a wall but tried to cover it up by pretending he was dancing and pumping his hands in the air
- Sex acts do happen but people don’t put it in your face
- Really young girls…who wear Anne of Green Gables sweaters
- Sketch can be fun in the light
- Bar stools on the dance floor
- Drinking all night…people were getting Jager shots at 3PM
- Full on espresso machine…not an automatic push a button machine…grind your own beans, pound in down, heat up the milk, here is your late…at 3PM
- Germans still use a lot of vinyl
- Nick Höppner was great, but needs to have a cigarette in his mouth or he train wrecks from nicotine withdrawal (he was amazing but had a smoke in his mouth the whole time other than the one train wreck)
- Lots of facial piercings (especially septum piercings)
- No security guards
- No last call is a good thing
For me Berghain ended up being the highlight of my 12 days in Germany with Graham despite going to Time Warp and Tresor. I would love to go back again and if at all possible I will. The only scary part is that you always risk not getting in. I have so much more to say about this place so just ask me when you see me out.
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would looooove to check it out one of these days!
OK, so here are my thoughts:
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