| Product: |
Berlin Love Parade |
| Date: |
04/04/01 (118 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Great fun, no cultural boxes to fit in.
Disadvantages: It's in Germany, I'm in England.
I'm really surprised that no one has written any opinions on the Berlin Love Parade. It's amazing! You'll love it.
Forget your Cream and Gatecrasher where you have to fit into some sort of underground cultural box in order to get in and plan a trip to Berlin next time the Parade is on.
All you need is a brightly coloured T Shirt, a pair of shorts (it gets warm) a backpack full of booze and your away. What's more it's totally free.
I was lucky enough to know someone that lived about two minutes walk from the main street near the GroBer Garten. This meant I was on the street before any of the crowds showed up. I've never seen so many people gradually filter onto one street before.
According to TV coverage, there were 1.5 million people around the Seige Saule! It sounds over powering and from the air it looks overpowering. But when you're actually standing there on the streets you not only have enough room to walk but also to dance the day and night away.
Whistles and sunglasses. These are a must. Annoying after a while but a must none the less. If dancing around to the music pumping out of the floats isn't enough then whistling along as if you're some raved up happy child will fulfil the dream (whatever that might be). Taking drugs is also an option if you really want to feel the beat.
Before the whole thing kicks off there is a buzz in the air that I have never felt before. It's a buzz of expectation and excitement. You know everybody is there for the same reasons as you, to party!
Even with riotous numbers of people, aggression is kept to an absolute minimum and as the sun glares down and the music starts, everyone from many different nationalities forget about work, their problems, and their worries and just dance.
Like the immortal words in that song sunscreen: Dance.
That's all there is to it. Take in the energy and vibr
ancy and just e.n.j.o.y.
Summary:
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Last comments:
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- 29/07/02 "from this year on the Love Parade will be seen as a commercial event"
Not true. The Love Parade by definition is not commercial. The event itself doesn't make a cent and is entirely free. |
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- 29/07/02 Oh and Malu, I appreciate your concern, but have you ever been to Berlin? Lived in Berlin? I have, and I can assure you it is a very poor city in MASSIVE debt. Given the history of Berlin, as one of the most bombed cities on earth, the only city in the history of mankind to be divided by a wall, it's people divided for 40 years by entirely different regime, evacuess shot as the world's 2 mightiest military systems stood face to face, I have tremendous admiration for the people of Berlin.
"I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of Berlin" -- John F. Kennedy
Of course, your concerns about the Tiergarten wildlife are valid, but I ask again, have you ever been there? The northern end of the Tiergarten is, at night, quite a disgusting place where Berlin's gays congregate and have sex openly. I know this because I have seen it with my own eyes, and I'd rather not discuss in detail some of the activities that go on there. Berlin is an extremely tolerant and liberal city, something which I admire, and the Love Parade brings huge benefits, only some of which are financial. No other city in the history of mankind can claim to have endured so much trauma in one century, and to take away from Berlin the festivity which it has fought long and hard for would be to concede defeat to political correctness. The Love Parade is indeed a political demonstration, it demonstrates with great integrity the spirit of the Berlin people and the ever-lasting struggle for democracy in Germany.
ENERGIE BERLIN! |
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- 29/07/02 The Love Parade isn't getting more commercial. This is bullshit invented by the Berlin punk scene, whose rival fuckparade never took off. You see them at Matrix club near Warschauer Strasse trying to behave all angry. In truth, the same music is being played as 8 years ago. The crowds are the same in nature and quite similar in size as to 5 years ago. All these Wheatus fans can celebrate their own parade, I don't care, I doubt any of them have heard of Chris Liebing, Marco Bailey, Christian Varela or Sean Colt.
The Love Parade is indeed an incredible event, the biggest in Berlin a few years ago was 3 times the size of Woodstock, a world record. However, I would say it isn't the Love Parade itself, but the week of pre and after-parties in the city, let alone the notorious Berlin underground scene, which make it worth going. The Love Parade itself is ten hours, but the party is a week long. Make a week out of it I say.
I'll be writing a review of Berlin, it's accommodation and the Love Parade in the coming days... |
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