Damian DeRave email 1994

From Krass

Love Parade (my love trip)

Hello DeRavers,
first I have to say a big sorry, because the meeting point that I said I will be at seems not to exist :-) Anyway here comes the story of my love trip:

Because of the experiences of the last two Love Parades I decided this time not to party on the thursday evening in my hometown, but of course I did. DJ Mark-Oh started with a very nice hard House set, played some Acid until he was so drunk that he couldn't mix anymore. But I stayed there anywhere until the end at 5:00. The we went to a place in the woods with about 40 ppl where someone with a load car-audio made music and we chilled and waited for the sun. At about 9:00 we (4 ppl) went to my home and took breakfast. I woke up my girlfriend at about 11:00 we picked up our friends for the trip to Love Parade and left Tuebingen at 13:00. On the Autobahn we met some Ravers, but not as much as I expected. But when we arrived in the evening in Berlin, the whole city was full of raving ppl. After a Burger King and a talk to some ravers from the Netherlands we decided to go to the E-Werk club and check out the "Wahre Liebe" Rave.

The E-Werk is a really cool location. DJ Kid Paul started with a really trancy slow set, with tunes I never heard before, but the people really liked it and everybody danced. I decided to leave for a short time, because I had toothache and I wanted to take an Aspirin, but when I returned there was a bouncer in front of the main dancefloor and he wouldn't let anybody inside. So I went to the chillout places, but I didn't liked the music and the mood so I finally left this place and went to the Tresor Club, where they played trance and real slow stuff, so I left again. I took a quick look at Elektra Club and Bunker Club, but all together this was not my night.

In the morning we left to a open air bath in Kreuzberg where I got my first 3h of sleep since thursday morning. The whole bath was full of ravers and it was really nice to lay down on the grass in the sun. After we all took a shower we drove to the Freudenhouse party, where we left the car and walked to the Bahnhof Zoo, where I realised that there is no MacDonalds at the corner Zoo / Kudamm, because this corner doesn't exist. So I went to Wittenberg Platz and waited for the Parade to start.

The Wittenberg Platz was full of people waiting for the Parade, they where sitting on the grass and chilling. Suddenly (15:00) there was a shouting and everybody was standing up and shouting the vibe was runnging through the whole city, you can't imagine this energy. After we realized that this was not the start of the parade everybody calmed down a little bit, but then ther was another shout. And it kept on going like this until 16:00, with every shout you could feel the energy. The people were freaking out when they heard a helicopter and thought the music would start now.

Finally the first truck arrived it turnded the music on and everybody freaked out. They played with the people, turned the music on and off, to raise the tension. I staid on Wittenberg Platz on a Gate so I could watch every truck. I made lots of photos (watch out for them on the derave-www). I finally climbed on the last truck and danced like hell. It was so f***ing hot, because of the generator, but it didn't matter, this was it, this was paradise, this was pure energy, how can anybody not understand the raving people. WOW!

The parade went on until 10:00 and I met a lot of people from all over germany and some from switzerland. Everybody was so friendly, I didn't see any aggressive people. The only number I heard was 80000 people on the parade, but I think it might have been even more.

After the Parade I went to the Unit Bath, but the entrance was 40DM and ther was a long line waiting, so we skipped that and went back to Freudenhouse, this was _the_ place to go for house people (and for gay people ;-) But it was a little bit hot for me, so I slowed down a litte bit and chilled outside the club. After it closed at about 6:00 in the morning (sunday), we left.

We went to the Love Bath in the SEZ again where they had a sound system in an open air bath with lots of grass and trees. DJ Massimo (Warehouse/Cologne) was playing and I danced as long as he as playing (until 12:00) in the afternoon I was really tired, so I slept a little bit, but then Sven Vaeth was playing. Normaly I don't like his style, but I didn't hear him for a long time so I was really surprised about his set. He really made the crowed move and hey played until 22:00 and nobody wanted to stop (ok ... I was really tired ;-)

At 1:00 we left Berlin.

This was as good as the 1992 & 1993 Parade, don't miss the next one.

People, I got to tell you: I am just not able to put all this into words, this was just to good and I wished it would never stop.

Christof Damian