Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

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  • jackdaniels
    Addiction started
    • Aug 2008
    • 327

    Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

    It is "the most controversial subject in dance music", if we are to take at least one clubber's word for it: the door policy at Berghain, the premier techno club in Berlin. Certainly, while lots of clubs are difficult to get into, few others manufacture quite the same atmosphere of pants-wetting threat as Berghain.

    The whole entry process is creepy. A winding cattle pen funnels you in pairs towards the door, where the bouncers loom, radiating all the approachability of an IED. One is short, brown-haired, nondescript. The next is 7ft tall, bald, with a sloping forehead, wearing a stevedore cap and jackboots, like a cartoon of evil. And the last guy you can't even see until you step, blinking, into the spotlight. His name, appropriately, is Sven, and he sits on a chair behind the first two, dark and hulking, long hair flowing, bullets of metal stuck into him at various points. He's difficult to look at for more than a second because of the tattoo of barbed wire crawling over his face. (Here's a video of Sven in artiste mode, looking , I can assure you, than he does in a dark corner of an old power station at 4am.)

    Then the selection process begins. The bouncers take a look at your face and do one of two things:
    1. Wave you inside.
    2. Tell you to leave and never return.

    At peak hours – 4-10am, depending on the night, when the queue can stretch hundreds of metres and two hours into the distance – as many as 50% of eager club-goers are turned away. But how do Sven and his friends choose? No English-speakers? No girls in groups of more than three? No plaid shirts? The only consensus among Berlin's clubbers is that it has nothing to do with how good-looking, stylish or "cool" you are.

    "Getting turned away from Berghain happens to everyone," says Felix of the Circus hotel's restaurant, Fabisch, which also employs a former Berghain doorman. The club has its roots in the gay scene but most nights has a very mixed crowd – and it's exactly this variety that the bouncers are trying, it appears, to maintain. In the interests of keeping the club a mix of gay and straight, men and women, stylish and laid-back, open to foreigners but with a German underground feel, Berghain engages in explicit social engineering to keep its reputation as the world's best club.

    When I went a few weeks ago, two girls in front of me with chic facial studs were denied entry for no apparent reason. As I shuffled into the spotlight, hastily removing the H&M earflap cap that in Berlin brands me thoroughly as a tourist, Shovel-jaw yelled something. My non-German-speaking girlfriend, guessing, held up two fingers. "Zwei," she said. Looking bored, Shovel-jaw waved us through. We were in!

    Suddenly I was staring into the chest of another gigantic figure shouting orders in German, and my girlfriend was being asked to approach a desk. Getting confused, we both turned and bumped into each other, lost in a maze of heads and tattoos and metal gates. Eventually, like a bumper car pushed into a corner, I found myself before a blond man in a T-shirt, guarding a door.

    "Um," I said, my voice breaking like the fast-food employee in The Simpsons. "I don't know where I'm going."

    He said something in German.

    "I'm really sorry, I don't speak German," I said. "Is this the door to the club?"

    The door was marked "Private". He pointed to the sign and raised an eyebrow. As I got my bearings, I realised I'd somehow managed to walk into a corner on the direct opposite side of the room from the ticket booth and door leading to the coat check. Trying to look casual but dignified, I excused myself, took my girlfriend's hand and went the right way.

    The bouncer looked at a friend. "Them?" he said, loudly, in English. "Really?" They both shook their heads, sadly.

    But if humiliation, arbitrariness and abject fear aren't part of your definition of "intimidating", let's hear what is – who are the world's scariest bouncers and where can we find them?

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/mar/29/berghain-berlin-clubs-door-policy
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  • cohiba
    Addiction started
    • Jul 2008
    • 367

    #2
    Re: Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

    Who the hell would wait in a line for 2 hours only to have a 50% chance of getting turned away???

    Comment

    • Haziel
      Likes a finger upthere
      • Jan 2007
      • 3195

      #3
      Re: Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

      Berghain is a divas club i would say , and so ofcourse they tell the bouncers to be real dicks , that s what they get payed for .


      Hawtin , dubfire and all their crew got kicked out from it last year, it can happen to anyone

      Comment

      • dig72
        Gold Gabber
        • Nov 2004
        • 882

        #4
        Re: Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

        Originally posted by cohiba
        Who the hell would wait in a line for 2 hours only to have a 50% chance of getting turned away???
        Dickheads, that's who.
        “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
        Marcus Tullius Cicero

        Comment

        • sakio pod
          SALAD TOSSER
          • Jun 2004
          • 6034

          #5
          Re: Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

          at the brothers club

          they got ghats

          Comment

          • DIDI
            Aussie Pest
            • Nov 2004
            • 16844

            #6
            Re: Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

            Make this three sensible aussies Dickheads is right
            Originally posted by TheVrk
            it IS incredible isn't it??
            STILL pumpin out great set after great set...never cheesed out, never sold out, never lost his touch..
            Simply does not get any better than Hernan
            The 'club spirit' is in the soul. It Never Dies

            Comment

            • Michael^Heaven
              Platinum Poster
              • May 2008
              • 1321

              #7
              Re:

              The last time that I was in Amsterdam, I watched this bouncer absolutely beat the shit out of this guy who was giving him a bit of lip & attitude beforehand. Needless to say, I was quite polite when I got to the door.

              Comment

              • hambino21
                PFC Semen Ham
                • Jul 2004
                • 863

                #8
                Re: Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

                F that snobby shite! I got turned away in Frankfurt at a couple of clubs, I guess for being american. Whatever, the best times are to be had in Holland anyway.
                " Focus on the subtleties and the world becomes grander"

                - Me-

                Comment

                • Haziel
                  Likes a finger upthere
                  • Jan 2007
                  • 3195

                  #9
                  Re: Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

                  bouncers and customs police are the worst piece of scumbags on planet earth .

                  Comment

                  • Michael^Heaven
                    Platinum Poster
                    • May 2008
                    • 1321

                    #10
                    Re:

                    Originally posted by hambino21
                    I got turned away in Frankfurt at a couple of clubs
                    Hopefully, not at Cocoon or Robert Johnson.

                    Comment

                    • Michael^Heaven
                      Platinum Poster
                      • May 2008
                      • 1321

                      #11
                      Re:

                      Originally posted by Haziel
                      bouncers and most police are the worst piece of scumbags on planet earth .
                      Fixed.

                      Comment

                      • hambino21
                        PFC Semen Ham
                        • Jul 2004
                        • 863

                        #12
                        Re:

                        Originally posted by Michael^Heaven
                        Hopefully, not at Cocoon or Robert Johnson.
                        Nope , it was actually at the King Kamehameha club and some other one that I can't remember.

                        I've never had a problem at Cocoon. I like that place. speaking of which, they are having a badass show coming up on the 10th of Apr. I will post it in the parties section
                        " Focus on the subtleties and the world becomes grander"

                        - Me-

                        Comment

                        • DIDI
                          Aussie Pest
                          • Nov 2004
                          • 16844

                          #13
                          Re: Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

                          Have to say we have pretty good security guys/girls here. Brown Alley in particular they are unbelievably good !! But most of the clubs I go to as long as you are polite to them they are the same.
                          Originally posted by TheVrk
                          it IS incredible isn't it??
                          STILL pumpin out great set after great set...never cheesed out, never sold out, never lost his touch..
                          Simply does not get any better than Hernan
                          The 'club spirit' is in the soul. It Never Dies

                          Comment

                          • coleby761
                            Are you Kidding me??
                            • May 2008
                            • 4857

                            #14
                            Re: Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

                            Originally posted by Haziel
                            bouncers and customs police are the worst piece of scumbags on planet earth .
                            And Dentists specifically the one on the left

                            Comment

                            • devon
                              Addiction started
                              • Jun 2004
                              • 362

                              #15
                              Re: Where are the world's scariest bouncers?

                              Originally posted by cohiba
                              Who the hell would wait in a line for 2 hours only to have a 50% chance of getting turned away???
                              shit i did that almost every month for 2.5 years straight to get into Twilo the last friday of every month to see Sasha & Digweed. Rain, snow, wind you name it we stood in it.
                              i really wish the floor would stop moving!

                              Comment

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