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WSJ Article - Berlin Night Life: Dark...and Cool
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| Swamper |
Saw this posted on Tribe - good read.
LINK
BERLIN—Laurent Daniels went to a nightclub to dance on New Year's Eve—and ended up staying for 34 hours.
The 48-year-old actor and film-and-television scriptwriter says that by the end, he could no longer stand. "My clothes were completely wrecked. Everything was dirty and spoiled," he says.
The site of Mr. Daniels' marathon dance party was Berghain, a renowned nightclub in a converted power station in the Friedrichshain neighborhood of East Berlin that opened in 2004. Berghain sits atop a rich club scene in Berlin that grew out of underground techno parties staged in abandoned buildings after the fall of the Berlin Wall and that now generates some €1 billion ($1.43 billion) in revenue annually, including clubs, music labels, event organizers and technology providers.
Many people travel to Germany to see its beautiful castles and churches, but Berghain has created its own wave of tourism, attracting club-goers from around the world to its dark corridors, hard music, 60-foot-high ceiling and multiple dance floors. Like the rest of Berlin, Berghain isn't known for its upscale design or Hollywood-style glamour. But that, partiers say, is exactly what makes Berlin, Germany's capital, the coolest city in Europe.
"You can do anything you want here. Nobody cares," Nick Pertsch, a night manager at Berghain, says of Berlin. "It doesn't matter how much money you have or how you look."
While Berlin has always been a city rich in night life—its vibrant cabaret clubs in the 1920s and 1930s helped inspire an award-winning Broadway play and movie—the current club scene can trace its roots back to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which left East Berlin littered with empty buildings. With little money for renovations, property owners began renting the spaces to club organizers to host parties on a short-term basis. The organizers invested very little in the buildings, creating a feeling of spontaneity, improvisation and industrial charm, says Heiko Hoffmann, editor of Groove, an electronic-music magazine in Berlin.
Tresor, which opened in an underground bank vault, and E-Werk, located near Checkpoint Charlie, were among the early Berlin clubs to embrace techno, a style of electronic music native to Detroit. The hard, abrasive industrial sound fit perfectly with the dark seediness of Berlin clubs at the time. It even helped to unite the formerly divided city, many say, because the music was new to both East and West Berliners.
"For East and West Berliners, [techno music] was neutral ground," Mr. Hoffmann says.
While East Berlin has changed considerably in 20 years, the seedy image of Berlin clubs has remained. Indeed, when Tresor reopened after a two-year break in 2007, the owners chose a renovated power plant in Berlin's Mitte neighborhood to mimic the same underground, chaotic feel it had in the early days, says Rick Kay, a technical director for the club.
A Tourist Draw:
With roughly 300 clubs with enough capacity to entertain 50,000 people, Berlin attracts thousands of tourists every year, helped by low-cost airlines that make it easy for people to come to the city for a party weekend. Last year 9 million tourists visited Berlin. When visitBerlin, a tourism-advocacy group, asked 19,000 visitors in an August 2010 survey what they did, 35% listed night life as one of the activities. At any given time, roughly half the club visitors in Berlin are tourists, according to the Berlin Club Commission, a trade association.
People often brave long lines and cold weather in the winter to get into Berghain, a notoriously selective club that ranked sixth in an annual DJ Mag survey of the 100 best clubs globally this year, down from No. 1 in 2009. Despite refusing entrance to some, Berghain frowns upon V.I.P. entrances and areas inside the club. Fans say the club, which has a hedonistic reputation and forbids photography, has no mirrors so people can relax and not worry about how they look. The Saturday night party can continue into early Monday morning.
When Thomas Schmidt of Spokane, Wash., quit his marketing job to travel around the world last year, he stopped in Berlin and spent two weekends partying at Berghain. Since then, the 31-year-old has moved to Berlin, is learning German and looking for a job. In Berlin there's no expectation that people dress a certain way or live by a normal schedule, says Mr. Schmidt, who likes to go to Berghain on Sunday mornings.
"I roll out of bed, splash some water on my face and grab a beer," he says. "I walk to Berghain and I'm dancing all day." |
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| Orko |
Cool. I'll be there for a few days in a couple weeks. I have nothing planned, but I will probably just wander around a lot.
I hope I can get into some fun adventures. |
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| techno_addict |
| lol, 34 hours in that place is ed up :crazy: |
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| Swamper |
| quote: |
Fans say the club, which has a hedonistic reputation and forbids photography, has no mirrors so people can relax and not worry about how they look. The Saturday night party can continue into early Monday morning. |
This part stood out for me the most.... I can only imagine some of the characters in there. |
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| The Highroller |
| quote: | Originally posted by Swamper
This part stood out for me the most.... I can only imagine some of the characters in there. |
| quote: | - A guy with hot pink slim jeans, black leather high top boots with many buckles, a checkered belt and a shirt that said "SUPER CUTE" (although Jay says he was anything but). This guy and his buddies had about a 45 minute session on the back couch at around 9am, trying each others shoes and socks on (ie wearing a huge stilletto on one foot, and a Converse shoe on the other and trying to walk around). They would also touch unsuspecting passer-bys with their bare feet. If the victims got closer to invesigate, they would continue their bare-footed assault.
- A girl that was dressed in a badminton player's outfit
- A girl that was wearing a flight attendant's outfit (she really looked like she had just got off a flight. I would have inquired, but her level of intoxication made me guess that she wasn't in a position to explain)
- Flight attendant girl, and about 4 others in her group, all wearing strange clothing or props, all equally as intoxicated, dancing completely off beat (interpretive dancing?)
- Some guy sleeping in a cubby hole (who was still sleeping there 6 hours later)
- People getting blowjobs and having full on sex in the cubby holes and other random corners
- 2 girls making out for literally 40 minutes straight (I actually timed it) with heavy petting (making out with heavy petting was increasing as the morning went on, even though Panorama Bar is not really that dark at all, putting you in full view of everyone else)
- Some guy "dancing" beside us who had his eyes closed for around 30-40 minutes straight.
- A few girls that looked like they were on a Junior High trip to Panorama Bar (had to have been around 14 years old)
- Seeing Jesse Rose hanging out and partying until 2pm.
- People sitting on the bar stools and having drinks at all times of the night and morning
- Never seeing less than 2 people coming out of bathroom stalls
- A full cappuccino/espresso machine that people actually used to have cappuccinos at 2pm.
- A random girl offering me a "shower" with her bottle of water, and then 50EUR to "guard her boot while she went to go get drinks" (she actually had her boot off and her 50EUR in her hand) |
From my Berghain/Panorama Bar review in 2008. |
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| Swamper |
Amazing.
Now, the question is, what was your outfit? :stongue: |
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| LightsOut |
| quote: | Originally posted by The Highroller
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haha  |
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| trancearoundwld |
This "epic experience"... of his, is nothing more than a sneaky way to advertise. They may aswell re-build the berlin wall, because people should stay out, germans have an air about them, a schnoblike attitude, they can have their schnitzels and octoberfests. I quit.
Even if it was the home of electronic music. It's not what it used to be. The new home of electronic music, is on a computer somewhere in the world, with cubase, reason3 , fl studio, and a keyboard. thanks for reading. |
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| The Highroller |
| quote: | Originally posted by trancearoundwld
This "epic experience"... of his, is nothing more than a sneaky way to advertise. They may aswell re-build the berlin wall, because people should stay out, germans have an air about them, a schnoblike attitude, they can have their schnitzels and octoberfests. I quit.
Even if it was the home of electronic music. It's not what it used to be. The new home of electronic music, is on a computer somewhere in the world, with cubase, reason3 , fl studio, and a keyboard. thanks for reading. |
What? |
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| Zyklon_Jay |
| They didn't let him in imo. |
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