Berlin Music Week 2011: Music Festivals to Take Over Berlin

September 4, 2011, 6:00 am

Music Festivals to Take Over Berlin

By CHARLY WILDER

As Berlin embraces its increasing popularity as a tourist destination, the city is also learning how to capitalize on what might be its biggest draw: its profuse music and night-life offerings. And so the bells and whistles are out for the second edition of Berlin Music Week, which will engulf the city’s many bars, clubs and various repurposed urban spaces from Sept. 7 to 11.

The mega-fest is really an umbrella designation for several large music-related events: the international trade fair Popkomm; All2gethernow, a “new music and culture convention”; two multi-venue clubbing festivals (ClubNacht and ClubSpreeBerlin); and the week’s keystone: the two-day indie music extravaganza known as the Berlin Festival.

Now in its seventh year, the Berlin Festival will take place Sept. 9 and 10 in Tempelhof Airport, the 4,000-square-foot, bullet-pocked Nazi-built megalith that has been converted to park space. The festival caused a considerable fracas last year when severe understaffing led to its being cut short for fear of a Love Parade-style stampede.

But now under new organizers, the festival has beefed up its staff and stuffed its roster full of indie headliners like Suede, Beirut, Public Enemy, the Rapture and Santigold. Also on offer are a slew of homegrown and imported performers and D.J.’s, who will spin at Tempelhof on a set of moving turntables, and at Club Xberg, the festival’s after-hours clubbing venue, where Berlin’s nocturnal party rabble can get down to sets by Diplo, Hercules & Love Affair’s Andy Butler, DJ Hell and Boy George (yes, that Boy George) all in one frenzied, four-hour stretch.

(Source: 4th Sept 2011 – The NewYork Times – Transit)

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• The music world looks to Berlin! (pinkbananaworld.com)
• In Transit Blog: Music Festivals to Take Over Berlin (intransit.blogs.nytimes.com)

Berlin Music Week 2011 – Hotspot Berlin