Anger as new Berlin wall erected around ‘free’ U2 gig

A row has erupted over Irish rock band U2's free concert to mark 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, after organisers erected a 2m-high wall around the Brandenburg Gate to keep out those without tickets for Thursday night's show.

Some 10,000 tickets were given away free online and snapped up within hours. But Berlin police now say they are expecting as many as 100,000 people to descend on the area tonight to catch a glimpse of U2.

The move has triggered outrage from both ticketless tourists and Berliners, who see the irony in building walls around a concert which celebrates the wall coming down two decades ago. "The falling of the wall was supposed to bring people together," noted BBC reporter Damien McGuinness.

The Berlin Wall fell on November 9 1989, after almost 30 years of Cold War division between Germany's communist East and democratic West.

The U2 gig has been organised by MTV, as part of its MTV Europe Music Awards which will feature a live link-up to the concert. Neither MTV nor U2's publicist would comment on the controversy.

Tonight's MTV Europe Music Awards in Berlin will be hosted by singer Katy Perry and feature appearances by Beyonce, the Foo Fighters and Leona Lewis.

Meanwhile Taylor Swift - the teenage country music singer who was at the sharp end of Kanye West's outburst at the MTV Video Music Awards in September - has made light of the moment in a promotional ad for this week's edition of Saturday Night Live. Swift has re-enacted the moment that West jumped on stage during her acceptance speech for Best Female to claim that Beyonce had deserved the award.

After Swift introduces herself as this week's SNL guest presenter, her co-star Bill Hader pretends to take a call from Kanye and says: "Kanye West just called, he thinks Beyonce should host..." Taylor then copies the same shocked expression she pulled on stage at the VMAs.