November 9th 1989 is known as the day The Berlin Wall came down. For those unfamiliar with this momentous event in history The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided East and West Germany from 1961 to 1989. This day in history served as a symbol of the country's unification—and, for many, the end of communism in Eastern Europe and the Cold War.
Faith No More were in Berlin to perform a fourth date in Germany on The Real Thing tour at The Loft. It is one of those historic events on FNM's calendar that the band truly recall. Adrian Harte covers the event thoroughly in Small Victories : The True Story of Faith No More
"It was our third time in Berlin, and we could tell something was up. The first two times we went, it was fucking scary. We had guns pointed at us. There were dogs under the fucking vehicles." - Mike Bordin
The band were backstage preparing to return for their encore when the club manager spread news of the wall coming down. Tim Dalton was Faith No More's tour manager at the time and spoke on his tour blog about the gig.
"FNM closed their set with a very appropriate encore version of the Black Sabbath song ‘War Pigs’. Klaus had made it to the band during the main set/encore pause and in broken English/German had told the band the news of the wall. ‘Big Sick’ Jim Martin played the first of two solos and Mike Patton, screamed, “der Mauer ist weg! Der Mauer ist weg!” No one knew what the American rocker was on about. War Pigs continued and Patton screamed something about Satan. Then, ‘Big Sick’ Jim ventured another Gibson Flying V guitar solo and Patton gurgled, “Thank you, Berlin, fucking night, see you later, man. And guess what? The wall is gone?” he said, laughing maniacally. Luckily I recorded this encore, all eight minutes plus of it, and it was released as the B side of the single Epic."
Listen to that recording below.
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