Berlin Festival 2011
Various, Berlin
09-10/09/2011

“This is one of our favourite cities in the world, we’re so glad to be back,” purrs Jonathan Pierce midway through a barnstorming set by The Drums, who are debuting their highly underrated new material from latest LP ‘Portamento’ at this year’s Berlin Festival. It’s a sentiment shared by many and also echoed by Battles and Public Enemy; both of whom repeatedly profess their love for Berlin. How can you fail to fall for this old frau’s thrilling combination of history, art and music all wrapped in a package comprising the craziest architecture (and people) in Europe?

Berlin is something special. Its festival is too. After some stop-start moments last year and a few crowd control problems, this year’s event turns out to be a true Teutonic treat, which works as efficiently as you’d expect a German car to. Once the main acts have finished punters are bussed to a complex of clubs in cool Kreuzberg. Among shipping containers, warehouses and post-industrial sweatboxes that look like the set of Saw II we enjoy some slippery Italo from Discodromo and some mesmerising mixing from Taiwanese Daniel Wang, who turns the Glas Haus room into a classic vision of the debauched Berlin that has intoxicated and enticed bohemian brains since the 1920s. Kruder & Dorfmeister put the full Kraftwerk-style live show on for their adoring fellow Germans; while Public Enemy‘s set in the giant warehouse is only marred by Flava Flav – who seems to think he’s on Richard & Judy’s Book Club and starts holding up a copy of his new autobiography and comically hard-selling its merits to the crowd.

Back at the main venue – the stunning former airport at Tempelhof, Battles turn in a rousing performance boasting jagged guitars and tight rhythms. Old codgers Wire seem to have the gas turned halfway down, while old codgers Suede go at it hammer and tongs. Brett Anderson just can’t sit still these days. Hercules & Love Affair and Santigold go down as well as a good currywurst with a crowd that’s as mixed and liberal and sexually charged as you’d expect a group of drunk Berliners to be. HEALTH and Apparat – the latter led by Ellen Allien-collaborator and Berliner Sascha Ring – both take prog in their own singular directions.

Experimentation, enjoyment, efficient partying and an electric spirit that’s palpable – Berlin Festival has all of these and deserves its place up there with Primavera and Exit as one of the best festivals on foreign shores that thoroughly merits the plaudits.

Chris Beanland