One of those events was the Berlin Wall of Sound, an initiative of the Dutch rock band Noir, from Groningen, which brought together a 200 meter long wall of (bass-)guitarists playing a 6-minute composition intended to be a “commemoration in sound as a counterpart to a commemoration in silence”. It took place in the Mauerpark yesterday afternoon in the drizzling Autumn rain.

Yesterday was of course also the official celebration at the Brandenburger Tor where many world leaders gathered to speak solemn words about freedom won and tyranny defeated. Too bad for many of the tourists and Berliners the area around the Brandenburger Tor was hermetically sealed of, apparently because of “too many people” already in the area; unsurprisingly some of those turned away clearly voiced their anger that an event that was supposed to celebrate a people’s new-found freedom became an event without those people being able to attend.

I could have known this would happen of course so while Gordon Brown was delivering his speech I headed for the Bösebrücke hoping to find a different type of celebration. Indeed, after Merkel’s visit during the day lots of media were still out there interviewing some of the locals who had been part of the events 20 years earlier. But as it was getting late and the rain had become more than drizzling many people had left already. Nevertheless the Mauer Mob was still standing, a human chain of thousands of people formed along the track where the former Wall run its course.

Below are a few pics I took in the Mauerpark and one of the Bösebrücke in the evening. For a general impression of the day be sure to check this photo gallery on the website of the Berliner Zeitung.

[View with PicLens]

On 3 October Pere Ubu performed “Bring me the head of Ubu Roi” in the Passionskirche in Berlin as part of their current European tour,  featuring electronics wizard Gagarin, and animation by The Brothers Quay. As always drummer Steve Mehlman and bass player Michele Temple did a brilliant job in keeping the performance on track.

An evening with David Thomas is never dull, whether he performs solo, with Two Pale Boys or Pere Ubu. And so we got it all: Thomas in the role of Ubu Roi himself, whispering and thundering while being backed up by the band who also played their parts in the theatrical music piece that Thomas has created; Thomas giving stage directions during the performance, explaining the audience he believes in “rehearsing on stage”; and Thomas becoming appropriately intoxicated for his role, keeping the audience wondering whether we were watching a genius at work immersing himself completely in his role or one of rock music’s legends with a substance issue.

In the end that is a rather artificial dichotomy though: Thomas is a fully dedicated artist taking his work very seriously but is also the first to poke fun at the pretentiousness of a performance like this. Indeed, a DT performance never comes without a fair dose of self-relativisation and Thomas exclaiming “It’s hard being a method actor when you’re drunk”, when forgetting some lyrics, was quite memorable. As were the three Pere Ubu songs that finished the evening, including of course the brilliant Non-Alignment Pact.