There were six months between buying the tickets and taking my seat in the Theater am Potsdammer Platz in Berlin for the premiere of the Blue Man Group's first venture into Europe on May 10. This was the show I had auditioned for last summer and was dying to know what I was missing.

I always seem to get incredibly early flights if I'm flying anywhere in Europe. Sure enough I found myself driving Dave and Janey to Stansted in the wee small hours to catch the flight with Air Berlin. We're on a bus in Germany four hours later looking for a connection to the center of town that it takes us a while to realise isn't another bus, but rather a subway. Like Berlin-Tegel airport, the tube is more New York than London and a bit grubbier than both, but it's great to see that while those two other cities have areas in decline, nothing about the German capital feels stagnant. Aside from the few remaining pieces of The Wall left as a reminder, everything I see here feels healthy and in a state of regeneration.

The Potsdammer Platz is a pretty laid back place, a clash of new technology and old fashioned (well, 1990's anyway) cafe culture. On one side is the Sony Center, their European HQ, and coincidentally host to the World Premiere of Troy (more of this later), a coruscade of shiny steel and reflecting glass and on the other are the restaurants, the bars and the huge gaping maw of the theater itself, a dragon masquerading as an entertainment establishment. In stark contrast, our hotel - ten minutes walk down the road - harkens back more to 1930's terraced housing with a liberal dose of nineteenth century gothic dolls and doll's houses for decoration (Jane was rather scared by the doll in reception). A mile the other way is one of the few remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall 'preserved' with all its graffiti behind some barbed wire for prosperity. Disturbingly, the most obvious scrawl seems to be from an English guy. Possibly about two world wars and one world cup but I could be wrong.

Like any show, BMG had a press and celebrity invite-only premiere before the unwashed public could get their hands on it. We duly trawled up then to see if anyone we had heard of would drop in and say hi. In between the Blue Men trying to direct traffic the wrong way, traumatizing a ballooon sales man and generally making people laugh, absolutely no-one we knew appeared. In fact, very few people our German friends had heard of appeared either. as we soon learnt, the 'A-list' was over the road at the premiere of Troy, a film in which Brad Pitt fights Eric Bana while both are wearing skirts. In the desert. In front of a big wall. For a hundred million dollars, it has to be said that there aren't many scene changes. The Greeks are in Greece, then at sea, then in front of a wall, and then behind it. Then the film finishes.

The cast and crew of Troy are all here. From our vantage point, we can see the huge plasma screen showing pictures from the red carpet and from the screaming we can estimate where Brad Pitt is standing at any given time, but aside from that the biggest thing about this show is the Trojan horse itself which they've imported to Berlin for a bit off effect. It's looks much more sorry for itself the following morning as crews dismantle it but what can you do?

Have you ever believed the hype or tuned into one particular aspect of a film or CD so much that the rest can't live up to the hype you've made for it? This happened with me at the show. Having listened to both albums incessantly and cried with laughter at The Complex Rock Tour DVD, it was sobering to finally see the show and see it in German rather than English as I assumed would be the case. Sure there were some genuinely funny moments but I lost a lot of it through the language barrier. It was great to see that Vera, Carsten and co did enjoy themselves though. Am I annoyed that I didn't get to play guitar at the show still? Not really now I've seen the show. It's great, but the show in my head is better.