Published: October 28, 2009 01:30 pm      

Free U2 Berlin concert tix gone in 3 hours

BERLIN (AP) — Lucky U2 fans have found what they were looking for.

The 10,000 tickets for the Irish rockers' free Nov. 5 show in front of Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate were snapped up in just three hours.

Hopeful concert-goers went online at 9 a.m. (0800 GMT) to get tickets for the four-song show, at one point crashing the Web site operated by German ticket company Eventim. All the tickets were gone by noon.

The concert is a tribute to the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago on Nov. 9, 1989.

For decades, the Brandenburg Gate stood just inside of then East Berlin border. In 1988, musicians such as Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson performed in a three-day "Berlin Rock Marathon" on the western side of the concrete barrier, with the Brandenburg Gate as a backdrop.

Concert-goers in the West hurled bottles and firebombs at the wall, while some 2,000 youths gathered on the eastern side to listen, many shouting "The wall must go."

The U2 concert comes on the same day the MTV Europe Music Awards show is to be filmed in the capital. It will be beamed live into the awards ceremony.

U2's 1991 album "Achtung Baby" was partly inspired by the band's stay in Berlin.