It's a Saturday night and you're on Hackesche Markt, realizing more and more that it's just become a corporate desert of its former, vital self. You turn left on Dircksenstrasse and walk in the shadow of the elevated S-Bahn thinking the brick arches must be good for something other than a Dante or a Zucca or a Riva. Even Kookai's sleek presence annoys you. Sure, your girlfriend likes shopping there and looks cute in their clothes, but why compromise while being a cynical purist?

You come to a bookstore that sells dictionaries and von Stuckrad-Barre by the kilo. That's a bit more like it, you think. A bit more Berlin. A little bit further and Berlin kids in their nouveau mohawks and second-hand Adidas togs are migrating toward archway 131. You're there, Zentral Berlin. By now you know their flyers by heart. They're the ones with strips of passport photos along the front with simple black-and-white printing on the back. Flyers usually advertising gigs by Am-Start's chaotic stable that you've bumped into so often at Bastard. All your Deli friends keep talking about Zentral and although your companion whines about the Mitte kids, you both admit that since you're here, you might as well have a look.

You pony up the usual cover, discussing how it's still cheap if you compare what going out in London, New York or maybe even Cleveland costs. Inside, right away you feel like you're at some legendary Berlin party, thrown illegally in some squat or pre-rennovierung apartment house. The kind of party twice as many people talk about as ever attended. The room is airy and sparsely decorated and there's space for more people than you think even know about it - even if Berliner Zeitung enlightened the uninformed in a full-page spread.

Waddling up to the bar in a winter coat you haven't yet got re-acquainted with, you add your accent to all the others clamoring for a beer. The music switches from punk to New Wave, songs you liked and had forgotten about. Despite the illegal party feeling, the crowd seems a bit more upscale. The usual graphic designer and art-student clientele usually crowding into Kunst + Technik or WMF on a good night.

Then you start to think about that Disney trick, making a desert look like something it's not. This time you don't have that same sense of bullshit, you just think it's fun. And that's because, clearly, Zentral may be about being hip, but it ain't about being corporate. And, thankfully, it's bringing a bit of guitar back to a city drenched in electronica.