- Hosting inner-city festivals can be difficult. One of the most fun elements of a dance music weekender is transporting yourself to another world, getting lost in new surroundings and listening to the music you love. So for those events which do take place within urban areas, they really have to pull something special out of the bag to leave a lasting impression.
For the second year running, Berlin Festival (formerly of Tempelhof Airfield) took place at Arena Park, located next to the intersection of Kreuzberg, Alt-Treptow and Friedrichshain. The organisers had set themselves up to achieve big things, booking a clutch of the most popular DJs and live acts in house and techno: Dixon, Âme, Seth Troxler, Richie Hawtin, Tale Of Us and Recondite were all on the bill. Such a heavyweight lineup shows you mean business, at least in regards to ticket sales.
The festival makes use of several Berlin clubs located along a stretch of the River Spree. Returning this year were stages at the Badeschiff beach area, Club Der Visionaere, Hoppetosse, the Glashaus, Arena Club and Main Arena Hall, in addition to a redesigned Art Village and the new Elektronische Wiese stage down in the Puschkinalle / Eichenstrasse corner. The Wiese stage was a welcome addition this year. Disguised with wooden pallets and hidden in the trees on the edge of the festival site, it looked the part and provided the best sound system of the weekend.
Living in Berlin and only ever attending one of these clubs on any given night, you don't notice how big the site is until you are walking around it in a series of one-way crowd control systems. By the time I'd done a couple of circuits to familiarise myself with the slightly tweaked layout on Friday night, Marek Hemmann was busy getting stuck into some tech house at the extremely full and appreciative main Arena Hall.
Outside and across the courtyard in Arena club—the main hall's smaller, more cavernous sister venue—Westbam's scheduled appearance was pulling massive traffic toward the door. Back in the main hall, Ten Walls had come on stage, moving frenziedly behind his laptop while dropping some heavier tracks than I was expecting. He was accompanied by what started off as impressively layered but simple visuals and he gave the crowd what they wanted—"Walking With Elephants," "Gotham" and "Requiem" all got an airing.
I returned early on Saturday to see Roi Perez open the Elektronische Wiese stage, which was programmed by Richie Hawtin for the day. Roi played some interesting records before a brief period of rain interrupted Marc Houle's buzz in front of a sparse audience. Deciding to wander around for a while, I came across the Raum Disco, a converted shipping container in the middle of the Arena field. Nestled in amongst the circus shows and food stalls, this little clearing seemed to be where the more radical attendees were getting loose, with party hits from Bowie, Prince, Genesis and even Beyoncé giving the festival a nice dose of unpretentiousness, topped off by the appearance of a troupe of dancing stilt walkers.
Saturday evening brought on one of those nightmare programming scenarios, with heavyweights Hawtin, Pan-Pot and The Howling all playing at the same time. If anything, I was interested to see who'd pull the biggest crowd. I trudged back to Hawtin's Elektronische Wiese stage to catch the end of Janina, a local Berlin DJ who was keeping things fairly understated until she dropped 2000 And One's almost-forgotten belter "Spanish Fly."
Watching Hawtin outside during the day, with no hypnotic lighting and no blacked-out tent, meant that the music—cold tech house heavy on the filters—had nothing to hide behind. Confident I wasn't going to miss anything I hadn't heard before, I jumped through the crowd to Arena Hall to see The Howling, curious as to why they've recently grown so popular. The duo certainly have a vivid stage presence, and it is easy to see why they have become such common festival fodder.
When Sunday finally came it felt like the day for the heads had arrived, as Badeschiff became the Detroit Detroit stage. Robert Hood's late cancellation due to illness meant that Derek Plaslaiko, Eric Cloutier and Carl Craig got the chance to flex their muscles with extended sets. Plaslaiko didn't care what time it was or how many people were in front of him (between five and ten when I arrived) as he drilled out nicely mixed house and techno. Tracks from Soundstream and Todd Osborn both featured, before the Bunker resident delved into some squelching acid house.
I left the Badeschiff beach to check back in on Elektronische Wiese, programmed on the final day by Life And Death. The stage reached its busiest point of the weekend during Tale Of Us, but with everyone going wild around me, I couldn't help but feel the structure of a Tale Of Us festival set bore remarkable similarities to Saturday's Hawtin performance.
Back at Detroit Detroit, Carl Craig reset everything when he took over later in the evening sun, letting Eric Cloutier's last track run out and leading off with half-an-hour of dub and soul. After sunset, I jumped aboard a quick boat tour of the Spree organised by one of the festival sponsors, just as Underworld were closing out the main stage. By this point all the other areas were shut, leaving the UK rave giants as your only option.
I couldn't help but find the Berlin Festival to be a little misleading, at least when compared to my own perception of what a festival should be. It takes place in Berlin, utilising some of the city’s most relevant clubs, but given the importance of the city within the electronic music world, I'd expect the festival to be more representative of its hometown's heritage. This year's edition was definitely an improvement on last year's, but there's still plenty to work on for 2016.
Photo credit: Stephan Flad