Tuesday, March 14

Jason gets a text message from our mutual Philadelphia friend, Patience, reminding him to pick up the Tokio Hotel CD she forgot to buy the last time she was in Germany. Since we are in an electronics store anyway, I suggest we look for it in the music department.

"It's probably really rare," Jason says as we search fruitlessly through the house and techno sections. "Patience gets down to some seriously dark nasty beats sometimes. Nobody goes to the mall for her kind of shit, I bet."

We finish our purchases and leave the store to search for a cup of coffee. I flip through our worn copy of Zitty while we wait for the U2, reading off potential activities for the evening. "Monolake is here tonight.. didn't he headline the last night of MUTEK when we were there?"

"Yeah, he went on too late though. I bet his tickets are expensive as hell actually, he's super popular."

"What about the Pharcyde, you like them, right?"

"The PHARCYDE? Let me see that.. do you really think that's them? Why would they put 'funky beats' after their name? What the hell is that? Why don't they call it hiphop?"

"I dunno.. do you think some random DJ would just name himself 'The Pharcyde?' They didn't advertise at all.." I squint at the tiny type.

"Man." Jason shakes his head. "Berlin is TOTALLY not ready for the shit they drop."

"Hey, look.. Tokio Hotel, right? They're playing tonight! We can get Patience a CD at the show! Looks like it's early, too.. we can do that and then go to Ausland for that free improv thing, then use those free tickets for Recloose at 11."

"This is a fun town you've got here."

"I know."

We linger at a Thai restaurant over Singhas and red curry, then take a train up into Prenzlauer Berg. The venue turns out to be a proper stadium, a surprisingly large one with a sports center attached. We find a man at the door scalping tickets for ten apiece and wonder to each other who these guys could possibly be, that they could charge thirty a head at six-thirty on a Thursday night.

Our bags are searched; the electric beard trimmer I have just purchased is confiscated and taken to a holding room, while I explain in my broken German to anyone who will listen that I don't normally bring electric razors to concerts.

I am so flustered by this experience that it is not until we have tried two or three entrances to the arena that I realize the place is packed with girls.

Small girls.

Most of them are no older than fourteen. Fully three-quarters of them are holding glow-sticks or light-up bracelets. Many of them are with their parents. All of them are howling along to the pop music blasting over the PA system while they wait for the stage crew to finish setting up.

"Dude. They start early in Germany. What's going on? Is this going to be techno?" Jason shrugs. We check entrance after entrance before finally finding standing room just inside one of the doors. Next to us are several middle-aged people and a boy of perhaps eight.

The lights go off. The entire stadium erupts into wild hysterical preteen shrieking. It is possibly the loudest sound either of us has ever heard. A couple of the older people nearby laugh as we stagger back from the force of the noise, clinging to each other desperately.

"JASON. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF MUSIC DOES PATIENCE LISTEN TO?"

"WHAT??"

The shrieking swells again as one by one four small teenaged boys appear on the stage far below us. Jason and I stumble back into the hallway, then stare at each other, wide-eyed, cackling in disbelief.

"I.. think I need a cigarette. Is that allowed here?"

We make our way to the top floor, where a large group of parents is milling about, cigarettes and video-cameras in hand. Jason lights his cigarette. We watch the stadium full of light-up bracelets and glow sticks bop in screeching pink-and-purple time to the terrifyingly loud German pop emanating from the four boys.

"Just pretend we're here with our kid or something. Act nonchalant."

"That guy scalping those tickets, he TOTALLY KNEW he had a MARK as soon as he fucking SAW us, we had NO IDEA." Jason watches a man take pictures of his small daughter as she waggles around approximately to the beat, giggling.

"So should we go get Patience that, um, incredibly ultra-rare dark nasty techno CD like she wanted?" A woman passes us pushing a stroller.

"Man. I think we did more than our part. We should find ourselves some fucking grown-person music."

"Be sure to thank her for the hot tip. I think this was almost worth the ten euro. I mean, I never would have thought of taking you to a stadium full of screaming middle schoolers."

"Let's go get your beard trimmer."