Berghain: the best club in the world, but for how long?

The front page of German newspaper Der Tagesspiegeln is not where you'd usually expect to find Sven Marquardt on a Sunday morning. But when the most famous bouncer in the world has a book of photos and Hugo Bass t-shirts to flog, you'll find him turning up in some incongruous settings to talk about his past as a model and his fondness for walking around abandoned abattoirs.

The colourful Marquardt’s celebrity is largely down to his job running the door at the Berghain club. It’s also a prime example of the span of attention the venue based in an imposing former power plant in Berlin attracts. Since opening in 2004, Berghain has become the most famous underground club in the world - infamous too, judging by the coverage devoted to the club’s unpredictable door policy.

We’ve been here before. When it comes to celebrating (or even fetishising) spaces and venues, dance music regularly comes over all dizzy. Every city worldwide has its revered spaces, which sometimes attract wide-eyed visitors from elsewhere keen to see what the fuss is about.

Often, these venues are only eulogised after the doors have closed and the wrecking ball has swung. Look at the nostalgia surrounding Cork’s Sir Henry’s, for instance, which was recently the subject of an in-depth UCC exhibition and provided a backdrop for Deep the play. Surely similar cultural odes are due for such capital city clubs as Sides or the Asylum or Olympic Ballroom.

Clubs, though, are really about the moment rather than nostalgia. Despite all the hype and hoopla which surrounds it, Berghain commands respect and attention a decade on from opening because it still delivers seminal moments.

It might not be much to look at on the exterior, but it’s a different experience once inside. Walk up the stairs from the ground floor entrance and and the sound system, so crisp, clear and clean, hits you right away and you’re completely smitten. The bare, concrete walls, high ceilings and imposing, austere infrastructure of what it was in a previous incarnation remain largely intact, but your attention is firmly on what’s coming out of those speakers.

While the top floor has the Panorama Bar for those who tastes skewer more towards house, the main attraction last Sunday afternoon was the energy and excitement on the Berghain floor. Every weekend, a galaxy of selectors redraw and redefine the soundtrack because they know that what will work for this mixed crowd (the door policy ensures a combination of young and old, gays and straights and freaks and suits) will work on any techno-friendly floor worldwide

Of course, Berghain has its detractors. Any club which has commandeered worldwide headlines and attention always will. And, just as clubs come and go and fashions rise and fall, Berghain too will be usurped in clubbers’ affections someday by somewhere else with a better story to tell. But that’s for the future. Right now, Berghain rules the roost.

You’ve Got To Hear This

David Bowie  - ‘Low’

The latest single Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) has a certain sepia-tinged sound to it, enough to send us back to the fruits of Bowie's Berlin sojourn in the 1970s. "Low" remains a set of rich, adventurous, enigmatic, melancholic and endearing art-pop which, like all the best music, sends you tripping to another alternative universe.

Etc

There are many reasons to head to the Cork Jazz Festival next weekend - including some musical ones. Estonian musicians' Villu Veski and Tiit Kalustie bring their Sounds of the Nordic Islands' programme Leeside, where they'll be joined by Irish adventurers Ensemble Eriu. Make a date for the Triskel Christchurch on Friday October 24th