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U2's Berlin Show Walled Off

Ticketless fans will need to scale these city walls to peek

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 5, 2009 7:06 AM CST

(Newser) – Outraged Berliners are complaining that building a new wall in the heart of their city is a less-than-ideal way of marking 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down. U2 will play a free concert in Berlin tonight as part of the weeklong anniversary celebrations, but organizer MTV has erected a 7-foot wall around the Brandenburg Gate site to prevent fans who didn't get a ticket from seeing the show, Der Spiegel reports.

"I find it rather unfortunate and unusual for organizers of a free concert—particularly one of this nature—to demand such a barrier,” a city spokesperson said. The walled-off gig may bring back memories for many former East Berliners, the Irish Times notes: concerts by David Bowie and Michael Jackson at the same site in the late '80s resulted in rioting when the Stasi cracked down on fans on the other side of the wall trying to listen in.

[Images (2)]

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Berlin's Brandenburg Gate is illuminated during a rehearsal of the "Festival of Lights" in Berlin last month. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Bono performs during the Echo 2009 Music Awards ceremony in Berlin earlier this year. (AP Photo/Kai-Uwe Knoth)

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It is a big event, one that I am very pleased about. It would be nice if as many Berliners as possible could take part. It would be great if the organizers would avoid barriers of any kind.
- Berlin politician Frank Henkel

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U2's Berlin Show Walled Off