Donal On the Road: Berlin, Germany (part 2)

Donal Murphy, one of @U2’s forum moderators, is on his own sort of “U2 tour” these days, which started with a visit to Nice for U2’s concert there earlier this week. He’s sending in occasional updates from the road. This is the third.

Pictures here

U2TOUR.DE FAN PARTY - FRIDAY NIGHT JULY 17th

Got down to the area where the party was early to scope it out. It’s a bit out of town for a tourist, but fairly local for a Berliner, as the city is geographically large. We found the club, located at the former Templehof airport, which was recently closed down.

With our orientation in good shape, we went for Chinese dinner in a nearby place. While finishing our meal I got a call from Kami Fuller — U2tour.de had put me in touch with Kami, who was looking for fellow English-speaking folk. Got to the club, it was called “Silvewings”, there was, I thought, an unusual amount of security on the way in, and scanning of tickets, stamping of hands etc., but little did I realise why this was the case (see later).

There was an outdoor bar and food stall, and the place was getting busy at 9pm the staring time. Hooked up with Kami and her Berliner friend, Jenny. Upstairs, a tribute band started later and played many early tracks, going back to the real early days. This was a refreshing change from the normal latter-day hits. I missed much of this set as I was too busy talking with Kami, who has an incredible U2 knowledge and extensive U2 gig experience — much to my delight! Great to meet with you, Kami!

Later, a second tribute band was on and they really got down to business quickly, and the room was heaving with atmosphere and heat. They delivered a varied setlist of the last few albums from AB forward, and added several snippets to these as used on U2 tours. They really got the crowd going and the place was fairly electric. The crowd had also swelled to a very large number, much bigger than I had anticipated. As the band played on I was aware that an early morning start was definitely on the cards, so I tried to find Hans-Juergen Becker. As it turned out, he was the first website-badged person I asked. He was busy with a big highlight in their calendar, so I didn’t keep him long, but he told me there were 950 people in the club. Well, that explains the scanning, security etc. He gave me some nice souvenirs from the U2tour.de merchandise and his good wishes. Thank you, Hans, for the courtesy you showed me — maybe next time we will be able to have a proper chat.

The get together had lots of other activities going on, but to be honest two tribute bands and a few new people to meet was more than enough for me.

While my buddy Joe had, during the course of the party, discovered a new female distraction, the agenda was always clear. So, while not wanting to get in the way of blossoming love, a quick reminder and schedule reshuffle resulted in Joe’s new best friend agreeing to meet us in the queue at Olympic Stadium at 8am the following day.
P.S. Thank you Dorte for the lift home in the “Vertigo” car !

SHOW DAY, BERLIN - SATURDAY JULY 18TH

As previously mentioned, Nice was a screw up for us. We did not get where we wanted to be. We were determined this would not repeat itself, so after a 2am finish the night before, we still managed to get to the stadium by 8am.

There are around 40 seperate gates in front of the stadium entrance, and there were around 100 people in place when we arrived, all spread across the whole 40-gate line. We soon met anthropologist “Barbara” who I had not heard of before, but I understand she has been a regular on GA tour queue-ups for the last few tours. Barbara was doing a survey on German-only U2 fans, so we were unable to take part in her research. Barbara was great “crack” as we Irish say (good fun to everyone else) throughout the day, and has several interesting stories and funny anecdotes about all things U2. Barbara, thank you for the jokes and humour throughout the day, it was a pleasure sharing the GA line with you and the twins (again, well known, good-looking Californian girls, but not to me) and another friend of yours, whose name escapes me but has one of the sharpest Bronx wit I have ever come across. She said she would kick my ass if I queue jumped!

Kami arrived not long after us, and more interesting stories were shared about music, U2 and live gigs. Kami - it was again great fun to meet up, I want shares in that new venture of yours, I believe. Keep in touch.

Also in the queue was Chris Heckmann and his buddy. I had great fun with Chris, and thankfully we shared e-mail addreses before the gates opened. Chris, great to meet you and let’s keep in touch — another great knowledge of U2, their music and live gigs.

All the above makes a GA queue so much easier — having a laugh with other people, jokes, stories, and just sharing information makes a big difference to the long day ahead. Speaking of the queue: After a few hours, they put up barriers, so at least we knew there was some control and security. In fairness, it was very well organised after these barriers went up, and we were very confident about getting to our chosen spot.

GATES OPEN

The gates opened at about 5pm. This was interesting as there were 40 seperate gates, so that meant quite a few people going through at the same time. It was a bit of a sprint, but I got in first from our group and held spaces for the other 3, who followed me in quickly. We were all set, just a little left of centre on the back rail of the inner circle. We had struck gold, exactly where we wanted, and a barrier to lean on to ease the tiredness of our fairly gruelling schedule of recent days — not all of which was due to excessive socialising! Well, we Irish can’t help ourselves when it comes to talking and having a few beers.

All in all, the most comfortable queue I have ever had for a gig. We were sitting around for most of it, and there were toilets and stalls that sold everything form German sausage to beers and coffee.

GIG

As I write, it’s just a few hours after the gig. It was my 15th U2 gig between 1985 and 2009, and it’s in my top 3 of these fifteen. I am a mere amateur when compared to the many people I have met both on this and previous tours, but this was an unforgettable gig for me.

It’s very late and I will update on the gig itself on the next update.

Last 4 posts by @U2

• Donal on the Road: Dublin, Day 2 - July 26th, 2009
• Donal on the Road: Dublin, Day 1 - July 25th, 2009
• Donal On the Road: Amsterdam - July 21st, 2009
• Donal On the Road: Berlin & Amsterdam - July 20th, 2009