WC2006: Youth Is Served

NH HOTEL, BINGEN (9:38am local time) -- One of the reasons I scheduled my itinerary the way I did was to purposely be in Berlin on a Friday night. I've heard so much about this cutting-edge culture that's been building, particularly in the Eastern part of the city.

Up to this point, I hadn't really done much about it. My host was busy with other things, and my guidebook only gave the most cursory mention to a live music scene, seeing as how I'm not one for the dance clubs.

Anyway, I went back to one of those restaurants I had seen earlier for dinner and the late match. It seemed hip enough, with a group of twentysomething Aussies (I think) who looked ready to hit the clubs a few tables over. A group of three that, as near as I could tell, consisted of two men and two women sat down at the table next to me.

As I paid my bill, I asked the waitress if there was anywhere nearby where I could hear live rock music. She checked with a colleague and told me that what I was looking for was just one S-Bahn stop away! She then gave me some vague directions from the train station which, as I said, were vague.

I got off the train at the stop that sounded like Hacker-Pschorr, and immediately could not find the street I was looking for - Sophie-something or Spandau-something. But I certainly found the heart of Berlin's nightlife. Or more likely its slowly failing liver. There were 24-hour bars and swank-looking shops and restaurants. No sign of live rock music. I walked around for a good while, just soaking it in, all the way to Alexanderplatz and the big broadcast tower with the pink T-Mobile soccer ball on it. By this point, there was a low fog coming through that maginified the impact of the tower. Hopefully the picture comes out.

Still no rock music, so I started to close the loop back toward that first stretch of bars. I heard music coming from across a wide street, but as I got closer, realized it was a German belting out "Over The Rainbow" at a karaoke bar. While there was a slight impulse to stay purely to be either kitschy, ironic or both, that impulse was quickly squashed by, well, a German belting out "Over The Rainbow" in a karaoke bar.

Back near the train station, over by where two kids were playing Stones tunes on acoustic guitars at an underpass, I had passed an Irish bar boasting live music. Unable to find the new, might as well go with the familiar. And was it ever familiar.

The first thing I hear upon walking in is everyone in the front room singing along to Bon Fucking Jovi. This is not the first time it's crossed my mind that this isn't really the hip, cutting edge of the culture, but the equivalent of Rush and Division back in Chicago. But you know what? I'm okay with that.

The band, in the middle room, is on break. The bartender makes fun of the way I phrase the single word "Guinness" as a question, but we come to an understanding. Not quite an Imperial pint, but I'm okay with that, too.

If I had been feeling homesick, this may well have cured it. I'm at an Irish pub with a pint of Guinness in hand while an acoustic trio launches into "Bad" from U2. One of the guitarists even sports a t-shirt reading "you say tomato, I say fuck you," only his is black while Anto's is red. I try sending the guys in Diver a text about this, but my SMS service has gotten spotty in the last day or so.

Did I get precisely what I was looking for out of Berlin on a Friday night? No, but given how little preparation went into it, I don't feel like I missed out. I did actually look, and I did find something, even if it wasn't so different from Cullen's on a Sunday night.