This time our choice was OstGut, a strange place in the East Berlin. I guess it had been used as some sort of a train storage hall and/or a repair shop, because there were railway tracks but it didn't look like a station. The place was mostly dark, with large pipes going under the ceiling and along concrete walls. The syntetic smoke on the main dance floor was blown around by a huge old fan (about 1,5 m in diameter), with the right amount of colored lights and strobos to occasionally illuminate the place. Wonderful spooky look, 10 points to the designer.
The look of the place was enhanced by the people. Of course on the Love Parade weekend the average pick didn't differ much from that you would expect to see in a party, but several were wearing leather or rubber and different metal gadgets. Many of the crew selling drinks had big tattoos over their bodies. I was directly asked two times if I was gay.
The star of the night in the DJ lineup was Luke Slater, Richie Hawtin should have been there too, but unfortunately had cancelled. The music was a bit too monotonic to my taste, but ok. Jani and Atte seemed to like it a lot. Unfortunately the acoustics were terrible, especially the bass end turned into unrecognizable noise already some 20 meters away from the speakers.
In the morning we caught the train back to Geneva, and had plenty of time to sleep.
Was it worth it?
The Love Parade is a whole weekend long phenomena. The range of parties was just outstanding with certainly something for everyone - well, for everyone even slightly interested in techno. The parade itself was too crowded during daytime, but the night was fantastic, as well as the other parties around it. It was definitely worth coming.
Not a surprise, but still one of the disappointing things for me was that the drugs were much more visible than in Finland. I was asked for stuff once and offered two times - no luck in either case. Aren't people able to have fun without pumping all kinds of chemicals in? I must admit, though, that I didn't see a single accident of overdose, and the users didn't do any harm to others - contrary to some people being drunk from too much alcohol.
As a whole, it was a great trip - see you there next year?
Copyright Arto Teräs <ajt@iki.fi> 1999.
Redistribution of this document as a whole or any of the pictures individually is permitted in any medium as long as this copyright notice is preserved.
Last update 26.7.1999.