The Berlin band “Die Ärzte” is giving three concerts at the Tempelhofer Feld this weekend. For author Anna Severinenko, this means seeing and hearing the band without paying. In return, she becomes a bystander. But is the concert experience the same?
Festival atmosphere on the Tempelhofer Feld: people spread out picnic blankets and toast with drinks, folding chairs are set up everywhere, the walls of tents flutter in the wind. Some stand lost on the lawn and shout into their cell phones “I’m standing here, but I can’t see you.” The opening act has just come down from the stage and everyone is waiting for the main act: “Die Ärzte”. There are hundreds of people spreading out on the lawn to hear the concert – none of them have paid for it.
A purely symbolic fence
I see Farin Urlaub on a large screen, the music is so loud that someone next to me puts earplugs in. You can’t complain about the sound either. A few hundred meters away from the stage, but outside the crucial barrier: the construction fence, hung with white foil to make it opaque. The fence feels 2.50 meters high and shows who is attending the concert and who isn’t, who has bought a ticket or who has saved the 82 euros and is still listening.
The fence seems purely symbolic to me as soon as the band enters the stage and sings the following lines from the song “Not Alone”: “Have you been waiting for the big moment for a long time? Do you feel cheated, do you want your money back?” These are exactly the questions I would like to ask the people on the other side of the fence. After all, I am also on that side and am one of those who have not paid any money but are getting the concert delivered at full volume.
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Why sweat in the crowd when you can hear on the meadow with wind
In front of the construction fence I meet people with tickets: “We’re going in today. But next time we’ve decided not to spend the money and just sit on the grass with a picnic blanket. Because it’s better here than standing in there among 70,000 other people and sweating,” says Marie-Therese. She’s sitting on the grass in the sun with four friends and would be happy with this concert spot. “We can hear everything here too. We even have earplugs with us because it’s too loud close to the stage anyway.”
Of course there are people with tickets for “Die Ärzte” on Tempelhofer Feld.
Dream for onlookers, nightmare for residents
The Tempelhofer Feld is a controversial concert location: It is one of the few places in Berlin that can accommodate many guests – around 60,000 people are expected at the Ärzte. Only the Olympic Stadium can accommodate that many people. but it is often occupied by sporting eventsAnd if someone plays in the neighboring Waldbühne, the stadium cannot be provided with sound for logistical and cacophonic reasons.
The residents of Tempelhofer Feld, both on the Neukölln side and towards Schöneberg, also get to hear the concerts, but far less voluntarily than the picnicking fans here. At the last musical visit to the field by Farin Urlaub, Bela B and Rod González there were numerous complaints from residents. However, the fans without tickets are visibly happy about the unfiltered acoustics on the field.
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Munich has the Olympic Hill, we have the field
Marie-Therese, the ticket collector, is familiar with such scenarios from her home in Munich: “Anyone who cannot buy a ticket for the big concerts in the Olympic Stadium in Munich can afford, go to the Olympiaberg. The acoustics aren’t perfect there, but I’d rather do that than spend 180 euros on a ticket.” Just like on the Olympiaberg, toilets and trash cans were set up everywhere along the fan march on the field – another invitation to the “free area” of the Ärzte concert.
After this conversation, I wonder how the musicians feel about this – a concert for free, because sound doesn’t stop at barriers. Are they making a loss because of Tempelhofer Feld as a venue? But the question is also whether they are really losing money or whether the people who want to listen for free wouldn’t buy a ticket anyway.
But who buys tickets anyway? “Tickets for sale for only 50 euros,” shouts a man next to me on the former runway. I head towards a group of young women who surely wouldn’t want to spend that much at their age, I think to myself. Lina Scholz disagrees: she paid 83.50 euros and thinks the price is justified. “Die Ärzte also have a big fan base and have been around for a while,” she says.
A warm summer evening on the Tempelhofer Feld, accompanied by music from the Ärzte.
Anyone who wants to pogo has to pay
That’s probably how the thousands of people I can see on the concert screens see it too. A tightly packed crowd, with no gaps to be seen. At this moment I’m very happy to be without physical contact with tens of thousands of people in 30 degrees and in the blazing sun. But that’s probably exactly the opposite of what many fans want.
“The pogo crowd is behind the fence and you have to pay for that, the feeling right in front of the stage is something else entirely,” says a visitor who has positioned himself with a blanket, folding chairs, a cooler and several friends just behind the fence outside the concert area. “Doctors on the Tempelhofer Feld, you can decide for yourself whether to buy a ticket or not, that’s the cool thing. I decided not to buy a ticket,” says the man.
At that moment, I understood Die Ärzte’s lyrics as a comment on the separate fan zones: “You are not alone, you are not alone. There are millions of us and there will be more of us.”
Broadcast: rbb24 Inforadio, August 24, 2023, 10:25 a.m.
