Donal On the Road: Berlin, Germany

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 second.

Pictures July 16th here
Pictures July 17th here

BERLIN - THURSDAY NIGHT JULY 16

We had a very late night in Berlin - took in Tachales, a famous artistic co-op of sorts, with several artist display rooms and several different bars. The whole thing is in a decrepit building, which was occupied by artists after the wall came down. There’s a great sense of Berlin here, a kind of anything-goes vibe. The dark graffiti that is used in some of the photos of the Actung Baby booklet is on all the walls.

They had a blues band playing outside, and DJ’s in one of the bars upstairs. I was here back in February, but it was one of the first places I wanted to go back and see and my friend Joe had not seen it. It’s not perhaps for the faint-hearted as the place is in quite a state of disrepair, but if you have an open mind it’s a really different place, and I have never seen anything quite like it.

We moved onto the other side of the social spectrum, a trendy club called Adagio, which is quite impressive. From there, we revisited a place I was in before, a pub/club called “Cafe Burger” which stays open until around 7am! It has a real local feel, and plays mainly Yiddish music, lots of dancing and some nice beers.

BERLIN MUSIC TOUR - JULY 17

Run by Fritz at www.musictours-berlin.de, this is a 3-hour tour of the music history of Berlin, from David Bowie to Iggy Pop, and the start of Techno. However, on this version of the tour, Fritz tailored it to U2 fans. We first spent 2 hours on a bus going around Berlin to the various music highlights. Along the way, many references were made to Bono’s involvement witrh DATA and the ONE campaign, and various meetings with high profile politicians. But the main content was around the profound influence this city had on Achtung Baby - my favourite U2 album. Fritz had a DVD running, which showed shots from the album artwork and inner photos, and we stopped at those actual places. It was a bit surreal, and very enjoyable. En route we passed the largest section of the Berlin wall still standing. It’s called the Eastern Gallery and is painted by many artists including Thierry Noir, who did much of the artistic work on the trabants. Later we passed the area where he lives. Many of the photos had a significance such as the East vs West photo of Larry on one side with a Trabant and Bono on the other side with a Mercedes. We also passed the building where the U2-in-drag footage was shot for Anton’s video for “One”.

Fritz played some very rare footage of U2 playing their second ever Berlin gig in 1981 in a once-famous venue.

The highlight of the tour for me was still to come. A 1-hour visit inside Hansa studios. We first went into the room where the “One” video was shot and the band did some initial recording for Achtung Baby, the building itself has a long history in recording, and has had many famous artists work there including David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Depeche Mode, Snow Patrol and, of course, U2. The ground floor room is instantly recognisable when you see the clusters of lights overhead, there is a shot of Bob Hewson with these lights around his head in the “One” video. It’s a fantastic room, really old, lots of wood panelling throughout. We then went upstairs to Studio 1 and went inside to see both the recording desk and the performance space. To finish the tour, Fritz arranged to get “Vertigo” played through the studio monitors, nice and loud … a great way to finish the tour.

One could see the huge effort Fritz had put into the tour, there was a lot of detail which satisfied even me. One item he mentioned was the famous “Hansa tapes” which went missing around 1990. He said they got taken at the hotel the band were staying in, by a hotel staff member, he said the matter was sorted out quickly as the studio had it’s reputation on the line.

BERLIN OLYMPIC STADIUM

After the slight screw-up with our GA entrance on Wednesday, I headed out to the Olympic Stadium to do some reconnaissance. I got there at 2:30 pm and no fans were in line. I checked with the security guard at the gate, and she confirmed that there was only one entrance for GA, it was straight in the main gates, and that the line could be queuing up on the left-hand side as you look at the stadium. She also mentioned that they expected fans later tonight.

The stadium is hugely impressive. It is round in shape and has a gigantic plaza on the road up to the gates. There is incredible history here also from famous sporting events; Jesse Owens winning several medals here in the 1936 Olympic Games is just one of them.

The other interesting thing is the U-Bahn line that takes one to the Olympic Stadium is the “U2″ line. The stadium is the second last stop on the line.

TRABI SAFARI

The music tour clashed with the English-speaking Trabi Safari tour, but we did go down to their base, and there is a large yard with many trabants to see, so we took some photos there. You can go on a tour which involves you actually driving the trabant yourself around Berlin, and you get directions and tourist information through the car radio as you drive around.

Just after we returned to our accommodation there was a fairly hairy thunder and lightning storm, the plan is still to get up quite early and head out to Olympic Stadium. Let’s see if this pan out, as we have the U2tour.de fan party tonight.

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