Our second year at Lollapalooza in Berlin, but this time it was at a different venue and we were just going for one day, mainly to see Ben Howard and The National, the latter probably a little out of place given this entire edition of Lollapalooza 2018 (apart for Kraftwerk) was dedicated to pop music and DJs. According to local media estimates, around 70,000 people descended on Olympiastadion, this year’s venue – we were hoping it was easier to get out of than last year, which was a bit of a nightmare! The festival started as early as 11am, but we headed over for about 4pm, just before Ben Howard was due to start.
It took a bit longer than expected to get in, there was quite a bit of confusion around which gate to use, but despite Mum forgetting her ID, we were inside soon enough and it was a very cool venue to have a festival, you couldn’t help but feel the history of the place. Berlin’s Olympiapark, with its (literally) monumental Olympiastadion, completed in 1936 for the Summer Olympics, is impressive to say the least and perfect for a festival venue. We grabbed a beer and headed over to one of the main stages where Ben Howard was already playing. Dad asked me to point out that for a country that produces so many awesome beers, you can’t get one at this festival! Check out the video of Ben Howard @ Lollapalooza by clicking on the link.
Time for a few more beers and some food and then to wait for The National, the main reason we were here. Dad and I had seen them last year in Manchester, but Mum is a super-fan having seen them lots of times in the UK and Poland. They opened with “Nobody Else Will Be There” and then “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness”, before delivering several spectacularly sounding tunes, amongst them crowdpleaser “Bloodbuzz Ohio”, the raucous “Day I Die” and the calm, acoustic sound of “I Need My Girl”. They knocked out a brilliant career-spanning set that included enough old favourites, as well as plenty of tracks of off last year’s excellent ‘Sleep Well Beast’ and true to form, Matt Berninger climed over barricades to get into the crowd near the close of their set and was only feet away from us. Check out the video of The National @ Lollapalooza by clicking on the link.
We’d seen everything we came to, but we had to check inside Olympiastadion before we left – this was where the DJs and other electronic acts were playing. Walking down the steps into the arena, Armin Van Buuren was still on, there must have been 20,000 people dancing all over the stadium (save for the seats, which were off-limits) and we left as quickly as we arrived. It made an awesome venue, the sound perfectly enclosed within the stadium walls, but Dad isn’t keen on the mainstream EDM being played, if only there was something more underground we would have definitely hung around. As we left the arena, it was starting to get busy outside and we later found out that thousands were trying, to no avail, to breach the fort that is the Olympiastadion for David Guetta’s set. The arena was full, with literally thousands of furious people left outside for security reasons. We thought about staying for The Wombats, but after one last beer instead headed back to the city centre on the S-bahn, with a definite thumbs up to this years venue.