We played some of these things naked in order to minimise sound

We played some of these things naked in order to minimise sound. In the process, someone smoked a cigarette and we realised we had our metaphor for waiting. The song could then begin.”However, the tension finds its most arresting manifestation in “Die Befindlichkeit des Landes” [The Lay of the Land] and its searing critique of modern Berlin – a city where even Sir Norman Foster’s transparent architecture for the new Reichstag falls short. “My basic point is this: Berlin, now the world’s biggest building site, is situated in an area of scars. Potsdamer Platz [in central Berlin] – this highly historically charged and pregnant area, where you can see traces from the Weimar Republic, the Second World War, the Cold War, the Berlin Wall – is being covered up by a cake-thick layer of meaningless architecture. And I do understand that it is meant to be meaningless: it is meant to make all this disappear.”[When] two months ago builders found the remains of the Führer Bunker on Potsdamer Platz, the first thing they did was panic.

Then they put a layer of concrete on top of it and continued building, without telling anyone, because they’re afraid that it might become a pilgrimage point for neo-Nazis. This is exactly the problem [Germany] should deal with; instead they cover it up, as an old Hollywood star might put an extra layer of make-up on her face to make her wrinkles disappear. The Germans are incredibly afraid of their past”.Bargeld himself favoured architect Daniel Libeskind’s Potsdamer solution. “His drawings left the centre totally empty, showing instead a series of directions: Moscow this way, and so on. It was a way of putting Berlin on the map within the context of other places, of showing to the outside world that we are like the remains of an explosion. Instead, Sony and Mercedes Benz bought up the area really cheaply and we got Aldo Rossi and they raised up a city centre which has nothing to do with anywhere outside it.”In tackling state-sanctioned amnesia, Bargeld invokes the allegorical figure of Melancholia.

She is, it must be said, a familiar presence in Neubauten’s work, a prevalent humour in their strategy of continual reinvention. Bargeld speaks of Dürer’s woodcut, Melancolia I, a winged figure, surrounded by architectural implements, her chin on her fist and her eyes fixed on the future She is – he’s emphatic here – a positive force. To leaven the point, the album sleeve reproduces a photo of Neubauten outside a lacklustre café in east Berlin called Melancholie 1 A sly, dry wit.Bargeld smiles his intense smile. If the presence of Berlin completes Neubauten, then they complete the city. The makers of the new Germany won’t be singing out his prediction – “Alles nur künftige Ruinen” [Nothing but future ruins] – but Neubauten are waiting for those first blades of grass to poke up from beneath the Platz And they’ll come.. The sedate 8,000-seater affair was a supreme example of consummate musicianship. Sting’s eight-piece band was tight as a drum, the set tastefully dramatic, yet the man himself was oddly distanced.

The sedate 8,000-seater affair was a supreme example of consummate musicianship. Sting’s eight-piece band was tight as a drum, the set tastefully dramatic, yet the man himself was oddly distanced.
The crowd lapped up his one and only piece of self-effacing blether (it was at the expense of his renowned tantric prowess) but were hungry for more. For Sting’s appeal is based as much on his charisma as his music. As sinewy and lithe as his trademark voice, he strutted around with an understated air of arrogance in his skinny rib charcoal polo neck and silky combats.Highspots included the classic “Fields of Barley” and a couple of tough country numbers – “I’m So Happy”, a song about fatherhood after divorce, and “Fill Her Up”, which started as twangy country,merged into gospel and then tumbled into the mother of all jazz fusions.Sting’s voice won a seemingly personal contest against trumpeter Chris Botti’s soulful horn, both holding the last soaring note of “Tomorrow We’ll See” for an eternity – evidence of the benefits of all that astanga breathing.The New Orleans-honky tonk “Moon Over Bourbon Street” was a belter, though it got a little messy as it wound down, and the extended improv on “Roxanne” got a little lost along the way.Among the ensemble, Jason Robello’s complex keyboard work interwove magnificently through “Set Them Free”, and Botti conjured up a great late-night jazz mood with his haunting horn on “Seven Days”. Sting’s own playing was occasionally inspired, especially on the encores.