The fall of the Berlin Wall is nearing its 20th anniversary. The city is awash with celebrations. Having said that, most of the celebrations seem to be more for the international press than the city's inhabitants. As far as I can tell most Berliners seem more concerned with drinking on the U-Bahn than partaking in public displays of post wall affection. This afternoon, I read online that one such celebration was a free concert at Branderburger Tor. Apparently, the city of Berlin in conjunction with MTV (Oh the sweet, glorious irony!) had arranged for U2 to play a short open air set before their appearance at the MTV Europe music awards. The MTV awards are this evening. While I am by no means all that keen on U2, my interest was piqued. A free show? This evening? At the lit up Brandenburg Gate by one of the biggest bands in the world 20 years after the most closely guarded border in the world was opened?! What a spectacle that would be. Apparently the band had released 10 000 tickets on their website a few days ago and were snatched up in 3 hours. Being ticketless, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get right into the thick of things, but I thought I might pop by anyway in hopes that I might be able to spy something worthwhile on a giant TV screen from a distance. For some reason I think that everywhere is Wimbledon polite and will screen events for those too cheap/lazy to get tickets. In any case, I thought that even from a few blocks away I would be able to hear something.
So off I went. No one seemed to know exactly what time it was all starting. I waited. I waited. I stood around and waited some more. I could see the Brandenburg Gate but not the stage. (Second taste of delicious irony: To celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall, U2 play free gig at Brandenburger Tor. Free gig is blocked off by 12ft high metal fencing covered in white tarp.) I was however most certainly close enough that when music was made, I would hear it. It got later and colder and still, there was no sign of them. Was this worth it? For four songs of a band I don’t even really like? It was 5 degrees when I left the house and the temperature was plummeting. After about an hour of being jostled about by throngs of manically rude Italian tourists, a misty rain began to fall. My commitment to the whole excursion, which I had been wrestling with in typical to and fro indecisive fashion, suddenly set itself. Without much ceremony, I turned and walked against the flow of people streaming onto Unter den Linden and left.
I walked along where the wall once stood and as I grew more and more resolute in my desicion to leave, it seems so did the rain in its resolve to stay. The fine mist grew thick and fat and soon droplets of water were splattering down and bouncing up from the sidewalk. As I reached Mohrenstrasse Station, where I was to catch the (quite fittingly) U2 line toward home, I heard the distant din of a screaming crowd and the thud of a stadium rock band. I don’t know if it was real or if I imagined it, it wasn’t close enough to tell, but still, I only paused a moment before descending down the stairs to the train.
There are bands that I will stand in the rain and the cold for, but U2 simply isn’t one of them.
In other news, on the way there, my ipod froze, crashed, then died. That’s another for the list of ‘shit I own that no longer works.'
