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Oontz upon a time... '90s electronic dance music (henceforth EDM) and the rave scene exploded. Rave, Ecstasy, and techno became household words. Backpackers hit club-crazy Ibiza on their way between Barcelona and Rome. EDM was everywhere: London, Cologne, Tel Aviv, Detroit, Omaha. It was... global.
Then, the powers-that-be caught on. Suddenly you couldn't flip on MTV without finding some brat with clown hair waggling his pierced tongue. Hollywood made a movie about it. They called it Go. In the film, all kinds of OMG! crazy shit happened — most of it involving the sale or consumption of Ecstasy.
Meanwhile, in the epicenter of the EDM craze, Germany, the essence of it all continued to bubble up once a year during an enormous dance party in the streets of Berlin, the Love Parade. Berliner DJ Dr. Motte conceived the event shortly before the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 as a demonstration to bring peace and international understanding through music. One hundred and fifty people came. The next year it got bigger. And even bigger the next. Club culture was booming, and the Love Parade, with its makeshift DJ-and speaker-laden floats pumping EDM (oontz oontz oontz oontz) into the heart of Berlin, grew into the world's biggest rave.
More than 100,000 people danced in the Love Parade in 1994. In 1999, it was 1.5 million. Each year Dr. Motte presided over the proceedings, wrapping things up over the Love Parade's epic sound system and sending everyone off to the clubs with a message like: "With this music you have a connection between hearts." Copycat Love Parades sprung up in such far-flung places as Israel, South Africa, and Chile.
And then it all just kind of... died.
Even with the growing horde of gawking tourists, year by year fewer and fewer people showed up. Those who did complained it was getting too commercial, too coordinated. Travel guides like Lonely Planet dutifully reported the trend alongside the dates for Berlin's burgeoning counter-Love demonstration, the Fuck Parade. Berlin, tired of wiping up the mess, revoked the Love Parade's demonstration status in 2001, saddling its organizers with the massive tab for security, sanitation, and closing down the center of the city. Attendance plunged, and in 2004 — then again in 2005 — for the first time in almost two decades, Berlin had no Love Parade.
But buried deep in the massive construction site that is Berlin, schemes to bring the Love Parade back were being hatched. What they needed was money, and then they got it, pitched in by... a chain of gyms? Called McFit? The Love Parade was back on for 2006. But would it be the same?
Dr. Motte didn't think so, and told the German magazine Der Spiegel he was out. "For me it's about the authentic line-up, all the presentation, modern culture, the whole spectrum of electronic dance music which we have been developing for the last 17 years. That was always my belief, and remains so, so I'm no longer taking part," he said, adding, "what matters is the potential and content of the Love Parade. Now it's about the sponsor, and all the sponsor wants is to strengthen its brand."
Palpating the bad vibes, the German press gave voice to other naysayers. This from the German news agency, DPA: "A poll by Berliner Morgenpost newspaper showed young Berliners were wholly indifferent to the parade."
"The Love Parade's mega-uncool," a 17-year-old youth told the newspaper. "Techno's the kind of music only old people like my parents would like."
Keen to keep kids in the fold, Love Parade organizers mixed up the lineup for 2006. A Love Parade spokesman explained, "We want the dance floor crowd who like Madonna, Fat Boy Slim, Shakira and Tarkan, not just the old synthesizer techno freaks." Nuzzling up to the city, they also sprung for public toilets (Love Paraders had in previous years used the Tiergarten, the park that surrounds the parade route) and Love Guards, whom they charged with dampening drug use and passing out party aides like glucose pills and contraceptives.
Such was the climate as the date for the 2006 Love Parade rolled around. I live in Heidelberg, just a few hours from Berlin, and even after reading all that, I was still excited to go.
Of course, I was also clueless about the culture behind the Love Parade. Aside from passively imbibing the EDM station that came preset on the stereo in my girlfriend's '96-model car, I hadn't heard much techno, house, trance, or whatever. I'd never been to a rave. So, when I bought my train ticket to Berlin, I knew I couldn't expect to report much about the quality of the music. But I was sure that there was plenty to see. Love Paraders were said to dress outrageously, if they wore anything at all, and have sex out in the open. At the very least, the sight of more than a million people gathered anywhere had to be something, and maybe there was something to this whole shared experience thing.
Things already looked promising on the night before the Love Parade, as we set out for Berlin. It was 11:30 pm, and in Heidelberg's train station the platform for the Berlin train was swarming. Here and there someone punctuated the low electrical hum with a shrill whistle. One co-ed cluster of kids bounced anxiously, wearing just enough hot pink fur to keep from catching cold. Nearby a squad of paramedics took inventory of their gear. All were waiting for the Love Parade train we'd been hearing about on the EDM station for weeks.
We — my girlfriend, Feleicia, and I — wouldn't be on it. But our train, too, filled quickly with people bound for the Love Parade. And as we snuggled into our spacepod-looking sleeper seats for the overnight ride to Berlin, I was rocked not-so-gently to sleep by the kid behind me, keeping time on my seat with his shoe — oontz oontz oontz oontz — to the EDM thumping out of his iPod speakers.
Check back on Monday for part two of PopMatters' Love Parade coverage, as Chris Gray jumps in, head.
— 28 July 2006
