- Saturday July 21 2001.
If you haven’t heard of the Berlin Love Parade, then chances are you don’t listen to dance music. To refresh everybody’s memory though, here is a brief history: The Love Parade was started in 1989 by Dr Motte, as a political demonstration designed to unite the youth of Germany and the world. To quote Dr. Motte, ‘The Love Parade recognises no borders, no nationalities. It stands for internationality and the positive youth partnership for the development of society in the United Europe and in the world.’ The first Love parade attracted 150 ravers. Fast forward to 2001, and the number has grown to 1,500,000!
Organising an event of this magnitude doesn’t come without its share of problems, and the Love Parade is no different. The parade was meant to be held on the 14th of July, but was pushed back due to an environmental group organising a rally on the same day (it is German law that only one demonstration can be ‘booked’ on a given day). Then the council tried to stop it as they didn’t want to foot the cleaning bill. The matter ended up going to court, and thankfully for dance music fans around the world, a court injunction was granted allowing the Love Parade to go ahead. One of the slogans for this year’s parade was ‘You can’t stop us’, a fitting motto if there ever was one.
The Love Parade goes through Germany’s Tiergarten, a massive leafy park, and down ‘Strausse des 17 Juni’, one of the central roads in Berlin. At the centre of ‘Strausse des 17 Juni’ lies the Victory Monument, a massive marble structure with a golden angel on top. The Victory Monument was the focus of the Love Parade, where all the floats meet up and top international (usually German) DJ’s take the stage, one on either side.
With the usual Australian clubbing misfits in tow, we descended on Berlin under the moniker ‘Team Oz’. Arriving on the Thursday, the city was in full party mode already. As we were out in the city that night, we stumbled onto a party outside a McDonalds! Some enterprising young fellow had set up his decks outside Maccas and had a few hundred people bopping away to his techno tunes. Even the workers in McDonalds were getting into the act, dancing behind the counter and blowing whistles.
The Saturday of Love Parade finally came around, and we jumped onto the train and headed into central Berlin, armed with an esky full of beer in true aussie style. Going with the flow of the crowd down towards ‘Strausse des 17 Juni’, nothing could prepare us for the sight we were about to behold. The entire street was crammed full of clubbers and floats, as far as the eye could see. Thumping bass was coming at us from all directions, and the vibe was electric, confirming that the Germans really know how to put on a party!
Making our way down the street, we encountered floats playing every sort of dance music possible, from funky disco house to jackhammer fast hardcore. We quickly settled into placed behind the ‘Pacha’ (Ibiza) float, who had quite a following dancing away to their house anthems which included Underworld’s ‘Born Slippy’ and everybody’s favourite (Northern Hemisphere) summer tune, Rodger Sanchez’s ‘Another Chance’. After following the ‘Pacha’ float all the way down to the Victory Column, team Oz decided to set up camp and watch the floats go by. Each float had its own following, from the young cyberkiddies following the ‘Alien Invasion’ trance float, to the laid back groovers following the ‘Ministry of Sound’ house float.
Although over one million techno fans were in attendance, there was always room to move, and getting out of the crowd was never a problem. If you wanted to sit and chill for a while, some innovative (or crazy?) punters escaped the crowd by climbing trees, traffic lights, light poles or anything above ground level. A lasting memory is of one young fellow in a ‘Scream’ mask dancing from the top of a tree, waving his hands to psych up the crowd.
6:00pm on Sunday rolled around and the final celebration was about to begin, as German DJs graced the decks at the foot of the Victory Column, playing their trademark German techno. At approximately 8:30pm the MC came on, and although we couldn’t understand him as he spoke in German, we did understand his last three words: ‘PAUL VAN DYK!’. Yes Berlin’s favourite son was given the honour of closing the Love Parade and he did so in style, beginning with the 2001 Love Parade anthem ‘Be Angled’ by Jam and Spoon. PVD continued on with his beautiful trance, bringing the Love Parade to a close around 11:15pm.
Love Parade parties continued all over the city, however it was off to bed for yours truly, who with a total of 6 hours sleep in 3 days, was struggling by midnight.
Having read Love Parade reviews in magazines and seen the photos in years past, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. But no amount of reading or looking at photos can prepare you for the vibe and atmosphere of the Love Parade. Quite simply, you have to experience it first hand. The world’s biggest dance street party will be on again on the 2nd Saturday in July 2002 – will you be there?