Fans hoping to catch a glimpse of U2's free concert celebrating 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall tonight will have to "scale these city walls" after organizers threw up a barrier to block the view for those without tickets.
Associated Press
<p><br />
Fans hoping to catch a glimpse of U2's free concert celebrating 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall tonight (Nov. 5) will have to "scale these city walls" after organizers threw up a barrier to block the view for those without tickets.<br />
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The move has triggered outrage from Berliners and tourists alike, all of whom see the irony in building wall around a concert dedicated to the wall that has come down.<br />
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"It's completely ridiculous that they are blocking the view," said Louis-Pierre Boily, 23, who said he came to Berlin even though he failed to get tickets.<br />
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"I thought it's a free show, but MTV probably wants people to watch it on TV to get their ratings up," said Boily, a native of Quebec City who was among several hundred people who gathered Thursday against the roughly 12-foot (2-meter) metal fence, draped with a white tarp that blocked off the view of the stage from the street.<br />
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Music network MTV, which organized Thursday's concert in front of the Brandenburg Gate, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.<br />
U2's publicist RMP also refused comment.<br />
<br />
Some 10,000 tickets were made available online for the Irish rockers' free show - and they were snapped up in just three hours.<br />
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The Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989, ending almost 30 years of Cold War division between the communist East and the democratic West.<br />
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Throughout those decades, the Brandenburg Gate stood just inside of then-East Berlin. In 1988, musicians such as Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson performed in a three-day "Berlin Rock Marathon" on the western side of the concrete barrier, with the landmark as a backdrop.<br />
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Concertgoers in the West hurled bottles and firebombs at the wall, while some 2,000 youths gathered on the eastern side to listen, many shouting "The wall must go."<br />
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<em>The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</em></p>
music
2009-11-05T20:09:39Z
677
Fans reacting badly to the unintended message
2038-01-01T00:00:00Z
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2009-11-5-u2-celebrates-berlin-wall-fall-by-erecting-another-wall
2009-11-05T16:07:00Z
U2 celebrates Berlin Wall fall by erecting another wall
published
Eastern Time (US & Canada)
http://tinyurl.com/yg99wb6
U2 celebrates Berlin Wall fall by erecting another wall
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2009-11-05T20:11:08Z
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4529
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