A final tour gives familiar songs a different weight. An anniversary brings listeners back to where it all began. Between them, De Staat have other plans for Halloween: heavy riffs, industrial grooves and a new chapter in their restless approach to rock. From 30 October to 1 November, Jules Ahoi, De Staat and Javiera Mena bring three very different occasions to Berlin’s club stages.
Friday, October 30: Jules Ahoi at Heimathafen Neukölln
Where: Heimathafen Neukölln, Karl-Marx-Straße 141, 12043 Berlin
When: 20:00
Jules Ahoi’s Berlin concert comes with a sense of finality. After ten years of making music, the songwriter is saying goodbye to the stage and his audience. His Robinson Crusoe farewell tour is presented as one last opportunity to celebrate that decade alongside the fans and friends who have been part of it.
That makes this more than another stop on an album campaign. For longtime listeners, the evening offers a chance to revisit songs with the knowledge that this chapter is closing. For newcomers, it is an introduction at an unusual moment: meeting an artist through the music he has chosen to leave behind.
Saturday, October 31: De Staat at Lido
Where: Lido, Cuvrystraße 7, 10997 Berlin
When: 20:00
De Staat make rock music that refuses to stand still. Industrial grooves collide with hard riffs, experimental electronics and flashes of pop, creating songs that are as interested in rhythm as they are in volume. “Witch Doctor” turns a chant into something almost ritualistic, “KITTY KITTY” brings a sharper political edge to the band’s fascination with demagoguery and mass manipulation.
For their autumn tour, the band return after a two year break with a seventh, self titled album and a new live show. The record explores dystopian anxieties around power, populism and control, themes that fit a band whose music can make collective excitement sound both thrilling and unsettling.
Their live history includes Glastonbury, Lowlands and Sziget, alongside tours with Muse, The Rolling Stones and Biffy Clyro. Lido offers a closer setting for that experience: less festival sprawl, more immediate contact with the stage. For anyone seeking a Halloween night driven by music rather than costume plans, this is the weekend’s most forceful choice.
Sunday, November 1: Javiera Mena at Bi Nuu
Where: Bi Nuu, U-Bahnhof Schlesisches Tor, 10997 Berlin
When: 20:00
Javiera Mena closes the weekend by returning to the record that started her story. The Chilean singer, songwriter and producer brings the twentieth anniversary celebration of Esquemas Juveniles to Berlin, revisiting an album that helped shape a generation of Spanish language independent pop.
There is a particular pleasure in hearing a debut through the perspective of the artist who grew beyond it. Mena now arrives with experience on stages including Coachella, Primavera Sound and Lollapalooza, as well as a significant place in Latin pop and the LGBTQ+ community. This anniversary concert brings those later experiences into conversation with her early songs.
Featured photo by Clownhouse III (Flickr), via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 2.0.