- If you know anything about techno, then you know of the infamous Berghain. For casual visitors to Berlin, the place is as much a curse as anything, their desperation to enter sometimes driving them to ignore the reward itself in their manic lust for victory. "I beat the bouncers at Berghain!" While experience would say that the door policy isn't quite as brutal as legend (any club with a capacity of 1500 can't turn everyone away), it's still slightly thrilling to enter, something that doesn't hold true for many other clubs.
Eschewing the big room—Berghain—we headed upstairs to smaller Panorama Bar, in time to hear Chilean star Dinky finishing with Inner City's iconic "Big Fun." Bearded Agoria was up next, touring to promote his Impermanence album. Perhaps it was just the thundering system, but there was none of the velvety elegance which usually characterises the Frenchman's work. Wearing the headphones like a visor, he instead took the crowd to a bubbling, acidic peak within the first hour. Dropping his collaboration with Carl Craig and La Scalars—"Speechless"—soon after, the room's hedonistic crowd was eating from the palm of his hand. Later, sensing the number of hearts pounding, he cut the music for a full five seconds, before resetting the floor with "Big Fun," this time a capella. There was no chance of a soft finish to the three-hour set though, with Trentemøller's remix of "What Else Is There" a thumping, unexpected choice that helped close things out.
After a quick break, it was on to the main room. Though upstairs the energy was high, down there it felt as if Len Faki was playing schranz. A mass of compliant bodies on the dancefloor, he kept the tempo high, and the percussion nothing short of cacophonous. Daft Punk's "Rollin' & Scratchin'" at 8 AM? You bet, that's Berghain. And yet, there was consideration for the legs, Jaydee's '93 classic "Plastic Dreams" offered a much-needed rest a while later, and still sounded fresh as ever. Trentemøller's "Les Djinns" remix also worked in a similar way. Stumbling into the sunlight at some time approaching midday, with muscles irreparably jellied, it was clear that the reward is definitely sweeter than victory itself.