Famed Berlin DJ Dr. Motte is headed our way to close out the Be You Block Party during this year’s Glebe Street Fair. He’ll also participate in Road Closed: Event In Progress, a panel discussion about hosting community events in city streets.
It’s a topic that’s very close to his heart: Dr. Motte is best known as the founder of the massive German electro festival Love Parade, with which he was involved from 1989 until its commercialisation in 2006.
The Love Parade story has a tragic conclusion, but it began as an event for people to unite in an urban environment and celebrate music and community. Much to the surprise of its organiser, within a few years it had grown into a massive world-renowned festival, attracting upwards of a million people from 1997-2000. This inevitably ruffled some feathers.
“We started as an orderly demonstration,” says Motte. “We lost the status in 2001 because 20 Love Parade haters announced a march on our date and street when we came to do so too. [The] Berlin Government said, ‘Who comes first is first,’ and did not talk to us at all. At the end we made too many bad decisions and went to court. We lost. Without the status of an orderly demonstration, you needed three million euros to pay all the cost.”
However, despite such nasty incursions, Love Parade was a hugely inspiring event that sprouted offshoots all around the world – including Melbourne from 1994-96 and Sydney in 1997.
“It’s a phenomenon no-one understands really,” says Motte. “I think to have an idea like this is a universal gift and inspired by the Second Summer of Love, 1988. I would say from the distance I have now, this has been the biggest global peace movement on Planet Earth – and it will inspire others to follow this movement. So we inspired people to do Street Parade in Zurich in 1992 [now one of the largest electronic music events in Europe] already. Never could we think to reach this far.”
Here in Sydney we’ve faced a lot of issues recently with venues closing down due to residential developments and laws restricting opening hours, which have had a destructive impact on the live music and club scenes. Motte can sympathise, and he sees no reason to give up the fight.
“Is music a noise? Is people dancing to music a bad thing? If you say it is a cultural thing of a society, it is a question of understanding each other. Whatever you do, come together and talk to each other. If you live in a big city, you have to cope with the noise of it and the noise people produce. But music is not a noise. It is a cultural thing of the society. People want to dance to music and artists want to produce music where you can dance to it because it is their way of expression, and this needs freedom. This should be common sense. Maybe we all need to relax and build up a friendly society.”
After a day of friendly frivolity, Motte will perform the concluding DJ set at the Be You Block Party. While he’s previously DJed in front of more than a million people, getting in front of a positive, engaged audience is a satisfying experience no matter the numbers.
“I never think about that I was playing to 1.5 million people in Berlin during Love Parade in 1999. When I will DJ at Glebe Block Party, I will enjoy playing the music I love to the people there. So I cannot wait to be there and see what will go on there.”
[Dr Motte photo by Yves Borgwardt]
Glebe Street Fair takes place onSunday November 15 atGlebe Point Road, a part of which is theBe You Block PartyatPeter Forsyth Basketball Court with Dr. Motte,Ngaiire, Polographia, Richard in Your Mind, New Venusians and Miles Merrill.
