Berlin 30-07-2010
You can enter another world without falling into a rabbit hole. Bar 25 certainly exists in real life, in Berlin to be exact, but the feeling inside the mostly-outdoor club is that it exists on another planet.
The multi-cabin complex of vice looks so much like Never-land – Micheal Jackson (R.I.P.) would have been envious. Thanks to its unique appearance and bizarre atmosphere, it has quickly become Berlin’s resident summer-hotspot.
The best party is on, of all nights, Sunday night. The crowd is then almost entirely Berliners, who, one would imagine, do not have to work on Monday morning or whose employers will be receiving a sick call with electric beats in the background. The Sunday night party lasts well into Monday afternoon.
Bar 25 isn’t just famous in Berlin – it’s internationally known for being a wonderland-night-and-day-club. The acclaimed film ‘Berlin Calling’ was in filmed in large part inside the wooden walls with DJ Paul Kalkbrenner having been at one point a regular Bar 25 DJ. Quentin Tarantino celebrated his birthday in the restaurant last summer while filming, ‘Inglorious Bastards.’
To get into the club, you might have to wait for hours in line during peak times, (weekends starting at midnight) or you might find there is no queue at all. In any case, there will always be a bouncer there waiting to skeptically scan you over.
Once you pass through the bouncers and bag-checkers (sometimes up to six men) you emerge next to a petite wooden cabin which contains the toilets – and smells traumatically bad so I’d suggest you avoid it as much as possible. From there you can walk straight through to the bank of the river Spree, where there are food and drink stands and swings set up.
It looks like Santa’s domain in the North Pole has crash-landed in Berlin, complete with oversized elves, when you look at the building fondly christened, ‘The Circus.’
The main cabin houses the famous DJs and the main bar. Here there are myriad couches as well as tables to dance on – not to mention plenty of one-of-a-kind people to dance with, occasionally even one dressed in an actual Alice in Wonderland party.
Like with Berghain, while one can never be sure of these things - however the perception is there - it often seems that illegal substances can be as rampant as the beer, but most people abstain and that is as it should be.
Underneath an overhanging alcove, dipping his feet blissfully in the water, sits a man without a shirt on.
Instead, he has a back covered in overt butterfly tattoos, wears retro red sunglasses just a shade darker than his orangish beard. He is nodding slowly to the beat nearby, pounding out of the main cabin. He gazes into the water blissfully and says slowly, chewing his lip, ‘Man, hier ist es so geil, so geil’ (‘Man it’s so awesome here, so awesome.’)
TIP 1-Make a reservation for the reasonably priced restaurant on weekends. You needn’t pay the 10 Euro nightly entry if you are a dinner guest and the food isn’t bad.
TIP 2- Head there in the afternoon if you can. Entry will be less and once you receive a stamp, you can leave and come back for sometimes even up to two days. Always ask for a fresh stamp anytime you leave.
from OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog – club writer ‘The Betty”
Tags: alice in wonderland, bar 25 berlin, berlin calling, paul kalkbrenner
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