Pushing the boundaries at an exclusive club

Long before Spanish pop star Rosalía belted out her track Berghain – partly in German – the country’s most famous club had already become a pilgrimage site, complete with fog machines, for techno devotees from around the world. Party pilgrims shiver for hours in the queue – not just from the cold but from fear of the notoriously strict door policy: the bouncers are the high priests of the club’s exclusive aura – guardians of the sacred “You’re not getting in”. And that’s a truth some only grasp once they finally make it inside. Perhaps because the thundering bass shakes their organs loose, or the strobe lights rearrange their brain architecture.

And it’s not just Berlin. Elsewhere, too, bouncers delight in asserting their power. At Hamburg’s Golden Pudel you must never give the impression you’ve ever filed a tax return. At Frankfurt’s Robert Johnson, you’ll wait longer for entry than for a GP appointment. And at Munich’s Blitz, the decision rests not just on your look – your spiritual aura matters even more.

Once you make it onto the dance floor, the ritual worship of cult DJs begins. Fans succumb to their beats like Odysseus to the sirens; philistines, meanwhile, think more of police sirens or construction noise. Connoisseurs lose themselves in academic beats-per-minute debates, while novices quietly wonder: “Is this ultra-minimalist genius or just the soundcheck?” 

Between them drift those who, thanks to chemical enhancement, find the whole thing “incredibly intense”. More conservative souls sip on their cocktails. If you forget to check the price list, you might easily burn through half a month’s salary in a single wild club night. 

Then there’s the fine art of chatting someone up. Classics like “Do you come here often?” have long passed their sell-by date. But euphoric declarations rarely fare better, such as: “Your energy is so strong it’s blowing my fuse.” Or: “You look really good in this light.”

But despite everything, dancing in crowded, loud and sweaty clubs is probably the most meaningful form of escapism our crazy era has to offer. As long as people prefer dancing together to causing other kinds of trouble, Germany’s club scene is doing its bit for world peace – Berghain included.