December at the Velodrome

The velodrome in Berlin, December 2009 - some T-Mobile-sponsored extreme sports show that had no business working. Corporate money and street culture don’t usually mix well, but the lineup they put together was solid. Pierre-Luc Gagnon, some of the best European skateboarders, and for music they booked Deichkind and Blumentopf, which seemed completely incongruous until it actually didn’t.

I remember the energy of the night feeling genuine. Not curated, not a brand activation that happened to look cool - just a crowd of people who showed up because the thing sounded worth seeing. The sponsorship was obviously there, obviously necessary to make the event happen at all, but it never felt like the point. The skaters came to skate. The bands came to play. Everyone else came to watch something that was actually good.

It was still early enough that you could just go to something without documenting every second of it. No Instagram, no stories, no way to perform being there - you just went or you didn’t. That December night in Berlin had that quality, and a lot of events lose it the second money gets involved. This one didn’t.