Ferret on Coke at the O2
Katy Perry spent the evening in outfits designed to melt the entire continent, which they more or less did. The Foo Fighters made the arena floor shake. Green Day set the stage on fire, more or less literally. The MTV Europe Music Awards 2009 came back to Berlin after a long absence and the O2 delivered something that felt, for stretches, like an actual event rather than a televised logistics exercise—which is about as high as the compliment ceiling gets for a stadium award show.
David Hasselhoff said something worldly into a microphone. Miranda Cosgrove, gorgeous and faintly glazed, presented the best video award to Beyoncé—which, as I noted at the time with what I think was appropriate dryness, she probably had Kanye West to thank for. The whole ceremony had a quality of barely managed chaos that the EMAs do better than most shows, possibly because everyone involved is just relaxed enough to let things get a little weird.
Malte and I found our way to the Universal afterparty and arrived to a VIP section already in advanced entropy. Sido—Germany’s most reliably uncouth rapper, which really is saying something—was there. Tokio Hotel had materialized with their entourage, which included a cluster of blonde underage groupies arranged around them like a tribute installation. Joko, the TV host, was drinking with methodical purpose. Then Culcha Candela played, then Jan Delay, then Patrice again—apparently indefatigable—and I danced through all of it, badly and with conviction.
At some point I had a short conversation with Palina, my favorite presenter, who was gracious enough to act like I was making sense. I collected a gift bag. I ate pizza, which by that stage felt less like a choice and more like emergency maintenance. This is what happens when you spend weeks replacing food with Red Bull: past a certain threshold you start moving through rooms like a ferret on cocaine—bouncing off surfaces, picking up suspicious looks from bodyguards, PR handlers, and minor celebrities in roughly equal measure. I’ve been told it’s not a good look.
Thanks to Nils Threepwood and his girlfriend for keeping the evening navigable. I went home and fell somewhere soft. No bones broken. All things considered, a very good week.