Wrong Turn at the Velodrom

We took a wrong turn somewhere near the Velodrom—Berlin, 2009, some T-Mobile skateboarding event. The elevator near Block 32 brought us backstage, and when security saw the camera they just decided we belonged there. No resistance, no checking, just let us through into somewhere we had no business being.

The event was skateboarding finals (Renton Millar won, Carlos de Andrade, some fifteen-year-old kid), arcade games, the usual scene. But the real draw was Deichkind, the German band that treated their shows like controlled disasters. Neon, rubber boats, umbrellas, props everywhere. They had this way of making you feel like you were inside the chaos rather than watching it from outside—being subjected to the performance instead of observing it.

We ended up right in front of the stage, which meant we got the full effect. It was loud and bright and relentless, and by the end of it we were completely covered in feathers. Not just a bit—actually coated, like we’d been through some kind of explosion. We were standing in the corridor afterward, still shedding feathers, when someone handed us vodka. We drank it without thinking about it.

That whole night had the quality of something that just happened to me rather than something I chose to go see. The best nights do.