U2's Free Berlin Wall Concert Sparks Outrage

BERLIN — Irish rockers U2 returned to Berlin for a free mini-concert Thursday in front of the Brandenburg Gate, playing its classic singles and a duet with Jay-Z even as the show was obscured from public view by a nearly 6-1/2-foot (two-meter) high metal barrier.

Bono greeted the crowd with the German words "Berlin, Du bist wunderbar!" (Berlin, you are wonderful!) and the band played a 30-minute, six-song set that featured "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," "One" and "Beautiful Day."

Rapper Jay-Z appeared as a surprise guest and performed Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up" with Bono.

The show, which was free to 10,000 ticket holders who snapped up the tickets online last week in just three hours, drew some controversy because of the barrier surrounding the gig.

Both Berliners and tourists alike saw the irony in building a wall around a concert dedicated to the wall that already has come down.

"It's completely ridiculous that they are blocking the view," said Louis-Pierre Boily, 23, who came to Berlin even though he failed to get U2 tickets. "I thought it's a free show, but MTV probably wants people to watch it on TV to get their ratings up."

Boily, from Quebec City, was among several hundred people who gathered earlier in the day against the new fence, which was draped with a white tarp that blocked the view of the stage from the street. Some fans already were trying to tear down the tarp before the concert.

The music network MTV, which organized the concert, said it worked with the local promoter, the city and Berlin police to install a temporary fence "around the site to ensure the safety and security of the attendees at the event as well as residents and businesses in the area."

U2's publicist RMP refused comment about the barrier.

Parts of U2's performance were later televised as part of MTV's European Music Awards. The band also picked up the show's award for best live act.

The Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989, ending almost 30 years of Cold War division between the communist East and the democratic West. Throughout those decades, the Brandenburg Gate stood just inside East Berlin.

In 1988, musicians such as Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson performed in a three-day "Berlin Rock Marathon" on the western side of the concrete barrier, with the landmark as a backdrop.

Concertgoers in the West hurled bottles and firebombs at the wall, while some 2,000 youths gathered on the eastern side to listen, many shouting "The wall must go!"

(This version CORRECTS title to 'One' sted 'One Love.')

Comments

[OkieIntellectual]

The real outrage here is that this group of hack musicans has had such a long and sucessful career. Just goes to show that folks will flock to whatever MTV and Rolling Stone tells them to.

[EscapeTireTube]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/221285

yes, he deserves Nobel Peace Prize!

[Cynth Bage]

Back in the late 50s, my mom scaled the Berlin Wall while my late grandfather distracted the guards. I'll have to ask her what she thinks of this, but I'm pretty sure she would think it was really a stupid thing for MTV and U2's management to do: preventing access to a free concert by building a wall around a concert celebrating the tearing down of an earlier and more oppressive wall.

Or she may think of this as a trivial thing to get worked up about. After all, it's a music concert. It wouldn't matter if they never gave out a single ticket and the only ones who were permitted were MTV camera operators. It would have been the same thing either way.

Compared to real people who had to sneak past the guards at the Brandenburg Gate, this is actually quite a laughable though ironic event. So what if the ticket holders ended up with bragging rights? I didn't even bother watching it on MTV or on the Internet. Besides, I thought MTV didn't show music anymore...I thought it was a realty TV network now.

[broker11]

Fact: They took the wall DOWN before the concert started. Get your facts straight!

[Pem3]

Yes ironic to wall off a concert to celebrate the fall of a wall, they should have had it drop at the end.

[seedoubleyou]

They shouldda performed Pink Floyd's "The Wall." (sorry, yeah, that was bad)

[EscapeTireTube]

Thank you President Reagan for freeing millions of people!

[30yearsinak]

Oh please.

[uglygnome]

What's your favorite kool-aide flavor?

[chip6bass]

I still watch Roger Water's (not Pink Floyd) Berlin Wall show on tape. That must be the show referenced.
Huge (huger than what U2 could ever pull off,as much as I love them).

"Tear Down The Wall!!"

[learntofly]

You have great taste in music, chip.

[the964kid]

That was pretty dumb. Is it just me or are U2 super corny? I mean I respect all the humanitarian work Bono does, but some of this stuff is just too contrived. Remember them at the Superbowl just after 9/11 when Bono opened his jacket and had an american flag inside it?? He's bloody Irish LOL - that was corny.

[houseofdny]

That was hands-down the best Super Bowl halftime show ever. If you lived in New York City, or knew someone who was murdered, brother, you did not find that corny. Sure besides that they're cornballs, shoveling snow outside Letterman and what-not, they're also self-effacing and they're the furthest thing from pompous. They know their flaws. They love America more than a lot of the people born here, they have homes here, have written songs and entire albums about the US, not to mention a movie. One of the reasons I stick with them is because their faults are right out in front, and because they're aware of them. They do most everything with their own money, they give back, they're pushing 50 and still trying to compete, and of course they slip up. Bono does cheesy things, and he does great things. It's all good.

[eliteandproud]

For so many of us in New York, reeling from the loss and re-evaluating our very existence in the city, it took a "corny" Irish band to give us a national sense of closure months after the dust settled. I've been a fan since 1980, but that was an astoundingly powerful moment. Besides, they have a strong relationship with Berlin. It's too bad people are "outraged" about a barrier - there were barriers at the Brandenburg Gate during the 2006 World Cup, too. What's the problem with some crowd-control and security?

[Balzac]

Bono is cool. They probably should have used a flimsier barrier and more personnel.

[BaronWVS]

Wow, that's just... creepy.

[isaidit]

In a related story, I wrote to U2 thanking them for having the foresight to save me from having to watch Bono emoting. Hi five!

[StarDagger]

Yeah you prefer to watching Glenn Beck cry fake tears on the Pox Network

[isaidit]

It's a real chin-stroker, that comment is. I have not watched Fox News since 2003, but with the sort of capacity you exhibit for your logic making erratic, quantum-like leaps, my impression is that you fit their demographic far better than I ever would.

Although, come to think of it, I have seen clips of Glenn on the daily show, and inasmuch as he makes me laugh, maybe you do have a point about my preference. Bono makes me wince.

[NoSillyName]

Oh, please. Who erects a wall to block the view of a "free" concert?!

Ridiculous.

[helenwheels]

Wow, stay cIassy, U2.

International FAIL

[Big0725]

What the he*ll does "international fail" mean? Is that street lingo? Hipster lingo? What?

[JonathanTroy]

I see you're new to the intertubes, Big0725. ;o)

(That series of characters following your "screen name" or "moniker" (or "handle" if you're a time traveler from the era of Citizen's Band Radio) in my comment (or "post") is called an "emoticon" and it represents a "wink.")

[CryptoSolipsist]

If you're going to get bent out of shape at every random piece of jargon, it would probably save you a lot of time if you just stay off the Internet altogether. Try reading a newspaper instead.

[ReesieKitty]

go to http://failblog.org/

it will show you many examples of epic FAIL

[SColbert]

U2 didn't build the wall, MTV did. Read the article.

[Rule Of Law]

And if Bono was half the populist he claims to be he would have said,

"Mr. Mtv, tear down that wall!"

And then refuse to play unless it happens.

[ReesieKitty]

Yes, but if U2 was really all about the freedom, they would refuse to play behind a wall.

[Nunnya]

Did'nt Alanis Morissette write a song about this or something?

[NoSillyName]

Something with the word "ironic", though improperly used?

[Rule Of Law]

Right on. The only thing ironic about that song Was the title!

[quoveritas]

All right everybody....let's go.......

tear down the wall, tear down the wall
tear down the wall, tear down the wall

[NoSillyName]

Mr. Bono, tear down that wall!

Where's RR when we need him?!

[quoveritas]

"Oh superman where are you now?"

Phil Collins

the music vid says it all.....I despise RR and everything he stood for.

It was Kennedy who helped unite the Germany's wayyy before RR.

[NoSillyName]

Amen, Star, wherever your comment is. We certainly don't need RR, for any reason except to paraphrase his quote to Gorby.