Since our overheated, sleepless nights of July were unduly stolen from us this summer, it’s a bit of providence that September is packed to the gills with festivals and festivities. Berliners need that or we all start to go a bit crazy. It’s daunting when faced with so many decisions, but if you resist and hermit through it, you’ll hate yourself for it during the winter months.
Picking up a copy of Exberliner’s new Festival overkill issue will help. And checking this very website regularly will help even more, where we at Exberliner will be working tirelessly around the clock to make sure you know what’s what or at least have something when you return home still wide-eyed and looking for something to read.
The month hits the (under)ground running with the ninth Drop Dead Festival slam dancing for an entire week. Bands, parties, markets and even séances to wake the dead that haven’t yet arrived await at the goth-wave-synth-electro fest (weekend dates: Sep 1, Sep 2, Sep 3, Sep 4 @ Club ADS) and that takes you through the weekend and into their dark beyond…
Keeping it dark, but no less thrilling, is a sneak peak at the new Lars von Trier film Melancholia (Fri, Sep 2 @ Babylon Mitte). “Melancholia” is a perfect name for a film by the only Dane who can compete with the king of melancholia, Morrissey, for gaffe-prone dates with the press. You can see the man himself on Saturday in a special two-hour Q&A to hear if von Trier breaks any records (Sat, Sep 3 @ Babylon Mitte).
If you’ve sat through two and a half hours of art cinema, you might be more in the mood for a traditional Berlin Friday affair, like We Love Wax (Fri, Sat 2), spinning only vinyl into the morning hours at Berlin’s newest attempt at nightlife tradition – KaterHolzig. We’ll see if and how KH holds up, but the night at least is full of promise.
Or you can skip the kiddies in make-up and beardos entirely and hobnob with high society on the opening night of Musikfest 2011 (Fri, Sep 2 @ Gethsemanekirche), Berlin’s classical music festival with edge, which, judging by its 19-day program, has more stamina than any of the other festivals on the roster this month. Opening night sees Wolfgang Rihm’s Et Lux.
Saturday sees an all-day street takeover called Torstrassenfestival (Sat, Sep 3 @ multiple venues) on, of course, Torstraße. Among many acts spread over the street (Jason Forrest, Stanley Brinks, Ena Wild and Mary Ocher), Exberliner will have its own personally booked station at our fave Mitte haunt, Kaffee Burger, with Schneider TM, Camera and more.
We could be lazy and self-serving here and end the Saturday recommendations, but if you’re not in the mood for dancing in the streets (figuratively), then keep it in one spot and see Hey Ø Hansen (Sat, Sep 3 @ Ausland) for a bit of Austro-Germanic dub! Check out our interview here.
On Sunday, if you’re not still underground with The Legendary Pink Dots at Drop Dead or mixing it up at the free Arrival: New Music (all weekend @ Hauptbahnhof), then you might just relax and prepare for Berlin Music Week and the Art Fair onslaught with a day of film: Breaking the Waves (Sun, Sep 4 Babylon Mitte) and Metropolis (2010 Extended Version) (Sun, Sep 4 @ Freiluftkino und Biergarten am Ostkreuz) are your best options.
