1D in berlin: a concert review

we set out for berlin on saturday morning, bound for a concert with british boy band One Direction (hereafter 1D). we found a hotel that could accomodate 7 in one room (it was actually two rooms with only one door), checked in, got all ready and set out for the concert. as you can see, it was essential to already be wearing 1D gear upon departure. my favorite part of this photo is the mad scientist political ad in the background (more about those in another post).

after a slight public transport snafu (there were repairs on our line, so it wasn't the four stops away we thought it was...it was three trains and a bus away, but we had time, so that was ok). once we got there, we had to pose for a photo with O2 World in the background (that was the concert venue). i'm not sure what that pose with the hands is, but it's apparently important (we would see it again, several times).

we walked in search of a quick dinner before the concert and came upon the berlin wall east side gallery - a section of the old wall (had to have been reconstructed, if you ask me) that was decorated by various artists, many of them apparently russian. we made the girls (ages 12-14) pose there as well, just to prove we had been in berlin.

traveling with five near-teens and teens isn't always a barrel of laughs, so there were a few times when we wished they would just get human.

i had declared before we left that we would not eat at mcdonald's and where do you think we ended up eating? yup, you guessed it, mcdonald's. i, however, grabbed a box of sushi from a nearby food court. i have to admit it was probably the mcdonald's equivalent in sushi form, but at least it wasn't actually mcdonald's. the girls were excited and happy by this time (feeding them helps) and this is probably my favorite photo of the whole trip.

they were singing loudly at this point, so we (my friend, who is the mother of two of the other children in the photos and i) let them get a little ways ahead so no one would know we were with them.

we then waited several hours in line to get into the actual venue. they were individually checking everyone's bags and taking cameras and iPads away from people (carefully numbering them, german style, so people could have them back after the concert), so it took hours to get in. i had time, while we were in line, to conceal my little nikon underneath my little iPad (which was in a case and therefore looking rather like a book). i was so happy i succeeded in smuggling my camera in (i actually didn't know at the time that they were taking iPads from people, so i didn't know that i was guilty on two counts).

as for the concert itself, 16000 screaming girls and a handful of dads and moms made up the audience. it was a cheerful, happy group. the boys are cute, well-mannered and not lip synching. they're humble and sweet. it made me totally ok with my child being so into them that her room is plastered on every wall with posters (and with driving 6 hours to see them). they can really perform and the production values of the entire show were high.

it was really worth the drive and the €50 per ticket. i loved the graphics - we could see the crew with computers and cameras down in front of us, expertly producing the show as it happened. and they did an awesome job. i loved this monty python-esque set - it even includes a blimp flying a red london double-decker bus. it seemed clever and not a gimmick.

it really is hard to decide which one is the best and the cutest. we all thought it was harry before we went, but actually zayn did most of the talking and is a pretty good singer. niall actually played the guitar on multiple songs. and there were a couple of moments where they were slightly off key, so they weren't just playing it all back. they actually gave a helluva show.

but the moment when they totally won me over was when they sang teenage dirtbag, that anthem of late 90s alternative loserdom. and it didn't even seem ironic.  and the graphics on that song, like a cartoon - and awesome, just awesome. they also did a WAY better job on their cover to blondie's one way or another than they do on the recording of it. they won me over with that too.

in all, it was a really good concert. even i enjoyed every minute of it. the atmosphere was positive and the energy was great. the girls loved it and were so glad we went. and i'm so glad i smuggled my camera in. we thought about following them to hamburg the next night (it's impressive how they can take down and set up their elaborate sets/screens and move to another city and often another country on a nightly basis), since it was on our way home, but we restrained. it was really kind of the experience of a lifetime! tho' nothing like seeing lyle lovett at mesa amphitheater in the mid 90s.

regarding the x factor

denmark has just wrapped up their second run of x-factor, the amateur talent show. it ends up being all about singing, and there's no evidence of other talents (not that much evidence of talent in the singing, if we're honest), so i don't know why they don't just bill it as a song contest. we didn't really watch the first time around last year, but now that sabin, at 8, has a strong will of her own and a more overt need to have a conversation around the playground equivalent of the watercooler, we've watched the last 4-5 episodes, down to the final. here's a video with the 9 finalists that competed over those weeks, just to give you a taste of the level we're talking about here:



in (no doubt contractural) obligation to the concept, they have the nice lady judge (lina) who is enthusiastic about everything, the nice producer judge (remee) who is nice to everyone and the evil judge (thomas blackman), who is nasty to all (and therefore the most entertaining).  and a bunch of happy amateurs (4000) who put themselves forward for the challenge. in the end, each judge had one contestant left (they chose them in sort of teams)--a 15-year-old boy of "other ethnic background than danish" (as we put it when we're being politically correct) (his name is mohamed, if you're looking for a clue to that other ethnic b/g), a group of talentless young people who never did learn to sing together and only one of which could actually sing and a 35-year-old single mother from the farøe islands.

i know what you're thinking--it sounds like a nightmare.

mohamed could actually sing a bit, in a derivative michael jackson in the jackson 5 days kind of way and he has a super cute smile and some glimmer of what i suppose the whole show is named for. alien beat club, the group, sang as four individuals of varying (not high) degrees of talent and never got the group thing together (thankfully, blackman actually got that shot in during his final critique). linda, the single mother, has a good, mature voice, but frankly, she's fat and a bit of a diva (not in an attractive way).  the whole thing was decided by SMS voting and mohamed was booted out and the awful "ABC" and linda sang a song that was written for them by the talented søren rasted of aqua fame (yes, the barbie girl  people).  and linda won in a squeaker by 2% of the votes. which only shows that there is a slight margin of reason at work in this country (but only slight).

at our house, we have a lot of mobile phones, but thankfully, did not contribute to the voting. i was fortunate enough not to get home from norway until the very end, so i only saw the last song, which was more than enough.

my take on the whole thing is that this whole reality t.v./song contest thing has run its course (perhaps i'm just wishful thinking). there have been a number of these programs run in denmark under various names and frankly, the talent pool isn't deep enough--the country is after all, only 5 million people and 27 million pigs and as far as i can tell, they've largely (but not completely) kept the pigs from showing up for the auditions. people who can really sing already have record contracts and so you're left with a bunch of happy amateurs, which could potentially be charming if they didn't think they were the next britney spears just waiting to happen. there is a reason you weren't already singing for a living, people.

thirty or is it now forty years ago, andy warhol talked about everyone wanting their 15 minutes of fame. i'm sure he would be appalled to see what's happened today (or perhaps he'd be intrigued). he would surely revise his famous statement to 15 seconds of fame, because that's what's happened in this democratization of fame. these talent shows where the people vote are supposedly so democratic, right?

didn't people used to "vote" by buying someone's record or not buying it? isn't that market force of the vote a better indicator of talent?  what happened to that? i realize that to an extent it's still there. martin, the winner of the first round of DR's x factor has faded from the scene nearly as quickly as he came onto it. i saw recently that he was going to do a mall appearance--i remember way back when when tiffany and debbie gibson did those, but that was at the beginning of their careers, not the end.

this morning on the radio, i heard linda, the winner, idealistically talking about how much control she was going to exert over her coming album. she said she wasn't a 16-year-old boy who could be pushed around like martin was. yeah, right, linda. i think you've got a rude awakening before you. when they're finished with you, you won't be eating comfort flødeboller before bed every night anymore and they'll have sucked out that spare tire you've got around your waist. she already underwent a huge transformation in appearance hairstyle-wise during the couple of months it took to do the show. i don't know what makes her think she will have any say whatsoever, just because she is a 35-year-old single mom. i've already heard the over-produced, synthesized britney-ized version of her rendition of the winning song on the radio and it's a far cry from how she actually sang it on friday night. i wonder what makes her think the album will be any different.

at least linda can sing a bit--here's her rendition of abba's money, money, money:



we simply must work on the child to upgrade her taste in television. maybe by getting rid of the t.v. altogether.