LOVE PARADE 99

It seemed that Love Parade would never come - God knows I missed it last summer I was in Berlin, but now I decide to take the plunge and take on the crowds. I'm standing in front of the mirror trying on my PJ Harvey records and being messy with my make-up. The door bell rings. Hey Carmen! "Electra! Are you wanting to come with me to the Love Parade? They're gonna pick us up in ten minutes." Of course I want to go to the Love Parade! Why do you think I'm dressed like a turkey on Christmas Day! We race out of the apartment and go to the meeting point on the corner of my street. For some reason there's loads of coppish people hanging around there too (Der!!). We try to think pure thoughts and just watch from one of the quieter corners well-dressed people being politely paranoid. In the car the music's really loud and everyone's really high and full of energy. We shout and carry on and navigate masses of road blocks. We jog along coolly, checking out our new compatriots that are absolutely EVERYWHERE! We cruise down to the bridge and get caught up in a never-ending sea of people. Where's the music? Okay, so we stand around for twenty minutes, then Dr Motte grabs the decks. I have a ball. We all dance together and smoke loads of grass. Suddenly it hits someone - Hey guys, it's about forty degrees and I think I'm getting thirsty. So, me and Carmen decide to take up the slack. We gonna get beer. It's horrible. It takes ages. Fucking ages. It's hot. Now they want four marks for a can of coke. That really hurts. And eight marks for a beer. A stinking beer. We sit down, smoke more joints, drink someone else's beer (thanks Jacko). Carmen reckons we should go back and give them their drinks. I'm fucking skeptical but enjoy watching Carmen in her false reality. We squimple and squirt and squeeze around in the crowd, and then we realise that the parade is coming through here somewhere and, oh look, there's some massive truck there, number 48, and that's where the dudes were, oh and Fuck Carmen, this just isn't funny anymore.

So we walk around some more, she's realising that we will actually never delifer the drinks, and now we want to go on the bridge, but it's just fucking horrible, and now we get caught in a mouse trap made specially by people for people at the end of a blockaded bridge. "Bummer Dude!" I'm getting out of this meat mincer.

One hour later we are in heaven. We found a U Bahn and went directly to Love Parade's biggest competitor. Fuck Parade. Yah yah! Areeba! Some real hard fucking music here, too hard for most of the onlookers, but as far as we're concerned this gabba stuff is really going off. The DJ is definitely a genius. Too bad he doesn't write his name on his truck. The Fuck Parade is the only good thing about the Love Parade. Yay! Move up a few metres and there's Donna Summer's "I Need Love" and everybody really relates. (Maybe Dr Motte really has some psychic force.) Coolio. Get trapped in some "Wait for me, no we can't go now, we've got to wait for her, no, I didn't know that you were a French film-maker" drama. Finally escape and everyone manages to find eachother anyway. We all go to my place for chill-out and refreshments. It's very important to relax for a few moments before going to the next thing because it's only eleven o'clock on Saturday night, and Love Stuff goes on All Weekend!! Okay, so Carmen is really the queen of What's On (I'm merely a princess) and she's all for the tunnel party at Gleisdreiecke (Kids - don't try this word at home).

Tilo calls wants to meet us somewhere else, so we go to the lovely Jazzanova party at Weinbergsweg Park. It's a super cool little bar in the middle of a park, and the temperature's hot and everyone's got their best party atmosphere moods and Whoo Hoo!! I really have my fourth dance of the weekend and charge around schmoozing and boozing with the French guy (thanks Stefan).

But save your excitement for a few minutes more - the Gondwanaland Party is the real reason for mission that keeps us alife tonight. Everybody in town is talking about it, and everyone has a car organised except for us (remember the people we tried to delifer the drinks to?) So I wrack my brains and try to remember tidbits of information. Information that should have come from Tilo, but we got into another late-drama-realm and missed the appointment and now we're maybe fucked. C'mon Electra! Everyone's relying on me to take them there. Oh God, here goes - "FALKENSEE!!!" (this place really exists) Okay, I'm really a reporter now... a critic in some ways that must tell the truth the way it is - "Fucking why do they only write on the flyers the way for the cars but not for the people depending on PT?!" We think Falkensee is the best bet cos it says that is the exit that the cars should take from the highway. So go on a massive adventure. Falkensee is miles away and we share the train with thousands of other Love Lieblings (I swear there wasn't a single one over the age of nineteen). There are guys with pimples and guys with tight shorts and girls with short dresses sitting on tables power tripping their best friends by being successfully flirtatious with groups of guys, then there was us, and the French guy of course, and Dieter who had to sit miles away cos all the seats are totally packed.... etc.

We arrive in Falkensee one day. Oh Fuck.. This could be nightmarish... Where's the freaks? Where's the shuttle bus? We find a little cute punk boy who has just finished his bottle of glue and is wandering around. He looks local to us, and we're in the middle of nowhere (you know that scene in Priscilla Queen of the Desert). We try some detective tactics. So, umm - where's the party? He looks blank. Okay, umm .- Where's the open-air party? Oh, the open-air party! He looks surprised and happy. Okay, umm, do you know where it is? No, he doesn't know, but maybe he can take us to the phone box. We see two other guys that are also going to the party and Dieter tries to communicate with them, but they are totally dreaming and have no real urgency to panic. So we call the Gondwanaland info line, and the line's totally engaged and then Carmen wants to go to the ambulance office (it's 7am) and ask if they know, and then Jesus drives up in a truck and takes us straight there. Amazing. Jesus smokes Lion tobacco. So, thanks to the lack of windows in the back of the truck, we all get in to the party for free!! Everybody runs directly to the dance floor!!!COOL!!!MAN FUNNY!!! We spend the next twelve hours dancing and swimming in the lake and chilling in the chai tents and eating and singing and IT IS SUPER!!! And the weather's perfect. And we give Jesus loads of love and worship.