Berlin's club scene takes on a new digital life through streaming

[Celerity]

Berlin's Legendary Club Scene Goes Digital to Keep the Beat Alive

A tidal wave of live streams from Berlin’s most renowned techno DJs is providing the city’s soundtrack during quarantine.

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/berlin-techno-club-scene-digital-live-streaming-coronavirus



An everyday journey across Berlin is set to a pulsing score: you'll hear electronic basslines in supermarkets, convenience stores (we call them spätis), and blaring from speakers on bicycles or in parks. You'll be minding your business one minute and suddenly -- boom! -- you're in a rave. But with the world on lockdown, everything's different. Even music. DJs aren’t hypnotizing hundreds at the city's iconic nightclubs, or busking with portable controllers for late-night subway stragglers. Even May Day -- Berlin's annual street party with open-air stages, mini-raves, and ground-floor apartment parties (window entrance only) -- is canceled.

Around the world, musicians and venues are taking to the cloud to broadcast performances, and Berliners are no different. A tidal wave of live streams is helping locals like me indulge in our daily soundtrack -- and giving global access to those who want to immerse themselves in our legendary club scene from afar. After all, Berlin is the world capital of techno thump. Why shouldn’t it reign supreme for “digital clubbing” too?



Techno is Berlin's musical lifeblood

Electronic music is everything in Berlin -- the rhythm interweaves with the city’s history. In the 1990s, after the Berlin Wall fell, underground techno raves in abandoned East German buildings symbolized a reunified Germany and newfound freedom for all. “The golden age [of the Berlin club scene] started around 2004 when tourism began, and it’s continuing today,” says Ellen Allien, a Berlin native and one of the world’s most renowned techno DJs.

The club scene is a serious economic driver, responsible for a whopping €1.48 billion in revenue. Seemingly every third tourist comes to Berlin to party. In the clubs, I’ve been lucky enough to encounter all kinds of colorful characters from all over the world, including a pair of techno-loving seniors with pink mohawks and a dad in a lime-green bikini top taking his daughter out for her first clubbing experience. No matter who you are, in Berlin's clubs you are free to be you. “[In Berlin], the people all dance differently, they all look different and not uniformed, you get all ages. A total mix from 16 to 60. You even get mothers and fathers [clubbing] with their kids. Girls can kiss girls. I have the feeling it’s freer [in Berlin],” Allien says.

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many streams later on in the article