disorganizations

Day 1 of the Berlin Festival was a total joke yesterday. Over 20,000 tickets sold for venues that only hold hold 5,000? WTF indeed. This had us waiting in, for example, an angry, riot-ready mob when it was announced that Hanger 4 was at capacity and no one else was getting into see Fever Ray. Well, gee, thanks for telling us now that inside the mega-venue are small venues with rigid capacity limits. The main stage (with unlimited capacity) was sitting empty for the whole night while fences we being kicked down and people being tackled trying to get into Fever Ray and then again at 2manydj's. Another lowlight was the sound mans' attempts to turn the volume down on electro-thrash master Erol Alkan. He would let them turn it down, then he would just turn it back up in their face. This obviously worked the already jacked-up crowd into a frenzy... so much so that I began to wonder if it was somehow staged. Afterward, however, I was tipped off that despite the fact that there are no houses insight from the closed airport, there was still a noise limit curfew. Another head scratching aspect of the dismal Berlin Fest. The icing on the cake, however, was the Police's decision to shut the whole festival down, or what was left of day 1, at 12:30, when there was many more acts to come; acts including Fatboy Slim and 2manydj's. This decision was obviously based on the recent tragedy at Love Parade, where 20 people were trampled to death because of poor exit-route planning. Fair enough. We wouldnt argue with canceling the show, after seeing the problems that almost broke out at the Fever Ray gate. However, a little foresight could have changed everything. I give it an F for event organization. If I'd have paid for my ticket, I would be demanding my money back.

Lcd Soundsystem were of course great, although admittedly less great than they were a few months ago. Their show yesterday leaned almost exclusively on older tracks and high tempos, whereas there other show did the opposite in both regards. Editors were, um, less than average. Sorry, but their live show just comes off as trying to sound like Tea Party, Nine Inch Nails and Coldplay wrapped into one. But I should try to check out heir older albums apparently.

In light of the day 1 madness, Berlin Festival (dis)organizers changed around the timetable for day 2 (today) and now the festival ends at 11pm. That's good because (enter shameless self-promotion) it gives everyone enough time to get over to the CCCP Club (Rosenthalerstr 71) to hear Lee Jones, Jan Blomqvistson (live) and me bathe you in nice soulful beats. Lee just finished mixing the new Watergate compilation and I can say that its very very nice. It will be due out mid-october. Soon he will leak a track from the new mix to a few blogs (mine being one of them), so I will give you all the background on Lee as well as a little interview when that happens.


I have a couple nice posts cooking up - getting back into the disco edits and house side of things. Speak soon.




Right click and save the song that closes the above clip
Lemonade - Vet