Bar Reviews > Berlin
Berlin Love Parade

  by Nischal

Berlin Love Parade

It's summer in Europe and that means it's carnival time.Yes, summer is season to be in Europe .If u r a crazy party animal , Europe is the place to be - it's a ravers paradise - Ibiza, Amsterdam, Paris , Berlin ...the list is endless. Summer is full of carnivals, festivals, concerts, fiestas, rave parties of every kind - sultry beach parties, mardi gras parties, street parties, ....but come mid july, all roads in Europe lead to Berlin, the techno capital of the world. It's time for Love Parade (LP). Techno music is a purely German export from the 70-80's and has now taken various forms like trance, house , lounge and so on and this festival is dedicated to this form of club music. So if u r a hardcore house junkie, this festival should be a sort of pilgrimage trip for you, which you shouldn't miss.

I attended this festival last year and I was in a state of trance for weeks to follow. I had never experienced anything of that sort in my life. I wish I can be in Berlin every July to attend this gala festival. In fact there are special trains running to Berlin from all over Europe for this event and people, mainly students, throng Berlin in their millions. Last year it was the crowd was esimated to be nearly 1.5 million (despite the post-911 alert). Trains leading to this city on that day will be full of noisy doped up revellers and it was one memorable journey. The whole city will be oozing with high energy and swarming with clubbers.

The venue is the vast, picturesque, central Berlin, Tiergarten around Brandenburger Tor, a gate that used to divide East and West Berlin. The festival starts right from the morning and extends till the next dawn break. All the traffic leading to the city centre is blocked and it turns into one big open air dancefloor. All you can see is miles and miles of ravers in every hue, wierdo funkish “Run Lola Run” hair styles , outrageous costumes stripped down to their bare minimum G-strings, topless infact totally nude dancers, horny teeny couples making out in nearby bushes, gays-lesbos, queens in feathery splendour , punks ... infact i and my group of friends seemed totally out of place, dressed up decently in plain T-shirt and jeans.

Then talking of music ,the place has floats crawling among the crowds i.e nearly 50 trucks with strobe laser lighting, fully loaded million watts of thumping sound systems ( you can feel that hard German techno thump somewhere between your chest and your groin), carrying DJ's, celebs, dancers etc. Imagine top DJ's from all over the world with the likes of Paul Van Dyke to Blank & Jones to Van Armin to you name it, all spinning at the same venue and blasting their techno creations to the heavens, it is one hell of a party. With each passing hour the intensity of hardcore house music increases and carries on with the same intensity till daybreak. Booze and drugs are available more easily than mineral water and fresh air to breathe. As the party progresses past midnight it gets more wicked, vicious and raunchy with sex, drugs free for all, all living up to the motto of this festvial - " LOVE AND PEACE! WELCOME TO ONE WORLD , ONE LOVE PARADE".!

The entire LP is televised live across the TV all over Europe, and this event is promoted heavily by the German toursim dept. in recent years. LP is part fiesta, part carnival, part Gay Pride parade, part European summer festival all rolled into one.

Another specatacle not to be missed is the city centre covered under tons and tons of debris with shattered glasses, cans etc and the stench of urine in the Tier Garten, the park that surrounds Unter Den Linden, the next morning.

Miscellaneous note :
If you r a backpacker & r a bit accomodati