A Quick hello from Ibiza

[Tremor]

Hey guys, sorry I just couldn't resist logging on to let ya all know Im on the white Isle and lovin it.

I will probably write up a full report on my return on Wednesday but it's been sweet so far. Been to Cream at Amnesia which is such an amazing club. Saw Groove Armada do a set at Eden Friday as well which was awesome. Off to see the Judge and Richard Durand at Judgement Sundays tonight so really hope Jules is on form... then prob Tiesto tomorrow at Privelige.

Hope all's well back home,

back soon.

[Aza]

Know the internet addiction feeling whilst away on hols too mate!

Thanks for the note, seems like you get things sorted and lined up for a great time

Take care and look forward to the report afterward!

[Neuro]

Great to hear... enjoy yourself and definitely let us know all about it on your return! Pictures welcome

[Chrissie Brown]

Have a great time @ JS tonight, the pre parties are really good too especially @ Bar M. Jules and the dancers do a great job of getting the crowd in the mood for a fun packed night @ Eden. Can't wait-not there until mid Sept.

Amnesia is amazing too, just love those ice canons they take your breathe away when the dry ice blasts you side on!

l scream with delight! Will def be going there again in Sept as l want to see SVD again as he's not @ JS when l'm there. Also want to go to Space as l couldn't fit it in last year and also Privelige.

Look forward to seeing your report.

Edited July 12, 2009 by Chrissie Brown

[simonross46]

love those ice canons they take your breathe away when the dry ice blasts you side on!

l scream with delight!

I'll have to fit one of those beside my bed then

Have a good time Mr Tremor sir, I know you will love it over there! :thumbsup:

[Number2Fan]

I would say something nice but I am way too jealous to do that!!

[emy]

I want to be in Ibiza

[Tremor]

Well Im back now and I had an awesome time. I will get a proper report put together but unfortunately I have to go away tomorrow with work for 2 weeks... so Im certainly gonna pay for having my little bit of fun.. haha. I may get some time to do it later or while Im away but I'd like to do a proper account of the week and just aint got time right now.. gotta re-pack my bags as I only got back this morning

[Number2Fan]

HA HA

[Tremor]

Well the report is finally done.. its a bit of a beast but hopefully some of you will find time to read it. Enjoy

Ibiza 2009

I am currently sat in a Bunkabin on a festival site in Stafford where I’m working for 2 weeks with no internet connection, a nightmare in today’s totally internet dependant world, but these things have to be done sometimes. So I thought I would spend some of my downtime doing a report on my recent trip to Ibiza to upload on my return.

So the background to the trip was that a mate of mine was going out for a week to stay with friends who are working out there for the season. He asked if I wanted to go and sleep on their floor so it would just cost us the flights plus spending money. Sounded like an offer I couldn’t refuse and just a couple of months later the day suddenly came round when we were to fly out for a week of intense clubbing and glorious sunshine. I had only been once before back in 2003 and I was in shock when I realised that was already 6 years ago. Last time I didn’t take much money and only went to Eden so this time I was determined to see a couple of other clubs and really make the most of it.

On Wednesday the 8th of July my mate Sam picked me up from my house in Wycombe en route to Luton airport having come from Bristol himself so it was quite a trek for him. We flew out at around 9.30pm so it was about 1am local time when we landed in Ibiza. We got a cab to San Antonio where we were meant to meet Will who we were staying with. It turned out that he was working when we arrived so he arranged to have another guy come and meet us who was also staying with him for a few weeks. We were told to look out for a guy with a white bag as he was coming to meet us from a kebab shop. We didn’t expect the huge bloke with a skin head and arms like tree trunks walking towards us to be John coming to meet us, we thought he was going to mug us! Anyway John turned out to be a complete legend, 38 years old and out on the island to do some DJing, having just been doing the same in Dubai for 6 months. John took us to the apartment and before we’d even put our bags down had poured 3 large vodka and cokes. He said Will was working at Savannah and wanted to see us so we headed straight out to the west end for some cheap drinks before making our way on to Savannah, a small bar near the sunset strip by Mambo and Café del Mar.

We entered the tiny bar/club to find a packed dance floor even though there were only about 50 to 100 people in there it was that small. The place was heaving and jumping to the sounds of dirty electro and we later found out it was Steve Angello’s younger brother on turntable duties. He was very good and the atmosphere was amazing. We recognised a few faces from the plane as a large group of Italians had flown out with us all wearing t-shirts saying “Italians Do Ibiza.” There was one very memorable moment when the opening synths of La Roux’s – In For The Kill were heard coming into the mix. The whole bar was soon stood singing along arms raised to the ceiling in drunken unison and we later realised it was in fact a Dave Spoon bootleg of the track. Will was working at the bar doing a recording of the set for a Polish radio station. He uses a Zoom box or something, I didn’t quite catch the name but it records the main mixer outputs as well as 2 channels of crowd mics straight to a wav file. When he finished work at 5ish we were pretty drunk and still far too into the music to leave so we stayed there for a fair bit longer. It was daylight when we left for the apartment and when we’d made the 25 minute walk back across the bay it was definitely bed time but we’d already had a top night out and had only landed a few hours previous.

Day 2 was Thursday which meant there was only one option on the cards for me; Cream at Amnesia. On my previous trip to Ibiza our flights in and out had been on the Thursday night so I couldn’t go which was highly disappointing. I was determined to make up for it. Before all that excitement we chilled in the communal pool shared by around 10 surrounding apartments, only 3 of which were actually occupied including ours so we had it to ourselves pretty much all week. We then went down to the Orange Corner next to Bar M for some breakfast/lunch as this is Will’s main place of work as PR manager. He was DJing in there when we arrived. Feeling rather fragile already after the first night I was sick in the toilets before polishing off a large baguette. Oh what classy people we Brits are eh. Later we headed once more to the West End where all the cheap tacky bars and clubs are and where you are constantly pestered by workers to go and get smashed in their bar with 5/6 drinks each for 10 euros or so. Much as I hate the place the price of drinks in the proper clubs makes it almost an essential start to any night in order to get on it early. In the last bar we went to before catching the bus to Amnesia, we even got a bottle of horrible cheap champagne thrown in for our 10 euros so we took it with us and shared it with some random girls in the bus queue.

After a rather rowdy coach trip, we arrived at Cream, Amnesia. We walked straight in, no queue and headed straight for the main room where Sander Van Doorn was on the decks. He was sounding very good indeed on this occasion and was clearly loving every minute looking out over the vast crowd from his mix position. I didn’t know anything he played but enjoyed every minute of it as I couldn’t stop gazing around the club at all the various bits of technology that seem to be crammed into every possible space around the dance floor. This year they have installed CO2 jets beneath the DJ booth which spray out just above the heads of the crowd below. The funktion one sound system was also very impressive and pretty much perfectly designed in terms of dispersion round the dance floor. The sound was even everywhere and felt loud without hurting your ears or leaving any ringing at the end of the night.

Next on the decks was Ferry Corsten who to be honest was a bit boring. I’ve not been into Ferry’s DJ sets since I’ve been going clubbing really as I first saw him in 2006 at Global Gathering by which point his sets were far removed from the type of trance he was so famous for producing back in the Trance hay day. He did play a couple of good tunes though including the Thrillseeker’s remix of Popiholla and a remix of BT – Flamning June, much to my delight. We also went into the terrace room for a while during this set to check that out. No idea who was playing and wasn’t that into the music which was a bit minimal for me but the room was just as impressive as the main room and actually bigger including a much bigger CO2 cannon capable of submerging the crowd in smoke within a matter of seconds. The coldness of the CO2 is extremely refreshing when you’ve been dancing for while. If only clubs in England were like this.

The night finished with Eddie Halliwell who immediately re-energised the crowd with his harder sound and cleverly used a very familiar sample in the first tune to get the crowd going; Lee Cabrera’s “Shake It.” The rest of his set was very good too and there were a lot of tunes I recognised but cant remember the names. We left before the end but it had been another very good night making 2 out of 2 and only really our first full day on the Island. More was certainly still to come as we had another 5 or 6 days to go.

Day 3 was Friday and when we eventually got up and went out for some food we met up with a couple more of Sam’s mates who were working for the season. Bidders and Council were staying on a boat in the bay with Bidders’ Dad. We went out on the boat for the afternoon and enjoyed the sun sat out on the deck, jumping into the sea and later being pulled round the bay on a Ringo by their small speed boat. It was really cool we got to hang out on the boat like this a couple of times during the trip free of charge. It was nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the west end and enjoy our own private sunset in peace, a proper memorable moment.

Later that night we headed out to Pete Tong’s Wonderland, via the west end pre-drinks of course. We were lucky to be out for one of only a few dates where Groove Armada headlined Wonderland instead of Tong. Andy and Tom were so good DJing together as they just looked like two really good mates having a laugh whilst thoroughly entertaining the crowd at the same time. This was one of the best sets I saw and even Pete Tong showed up anyway and spent all their set in the VIP next to the DJ booth on his night off. Nic Fanciulli followed and was also very popular but I got tired and left early on this occasion, heading back for some sleep.

Saturday is a pretty quiet night really with no major events on, We decided to chill and recover ahead of Judgement Sundays the next day. We didn’t do a lot really, just went out for a meal in the evening and a few beers.

Sunday evening we watched the sunset on the boat again and then prepared to go out. We sat eating a late meal at the Orange Corner while Jules was playing at the pre-party next door in Bar M. It felt odd not to be running in there to have a dance but we knew we’d be seeing him in a few hours anyway. We managed to get 2 of us on the guest list for Judgement so we shared the cost of 2 more tickets between 4 of us. This was a good job as JS is a very expensive 45 euros to get in (Cream was only 40 and I had assumed that was a bigger night line up wise).

When we arrive Marco V was on warm up duties. The music was ok to come into but it didn’t really tempt me straight onto the dance floor so I took the opportunity to have a good look round the club. The balcony is open to everyone now where as I think it used to be the VIP section. However there are loads of strings of lights and LEDs hanging from the ceiling to the balcony rail blocking much of the view of the dance floor so it seemed a bit pointless. Soon Jules hit the decks and I headed straight to the front hoping he would play a good set that night. To be honest it was a bit all over the place as usual and I enjoyed some tunes but not others which made it hard to get into the set as a whole. Highlights for me were Rank 1 – Sympho, Paul Webster – The Wolf, Olive – Your Not Alone (Paul Webster Remix), Ronski Speed – Are You (Sun Decade Mix), La Roux – In For the Kill. The real low point for me was that awful Earth Song bootleg, so pointless. His whole set was accompanied by some guy doing live electronic percussion and effects. This was a little worrying at first as many people actually thought this guy was mixing for Jules and I have to admit the thought crossed my mind as well for a while. It looked this was because the guy almost permanently had his headphones on and was really concentrating on the beats while Jules was larking about with the crowd around the DJ booth. I got up close to check out what he was doing and basically he was doing all the effects for Jules so suddenly there was a lot of effects for a Julesy set. He also had some electric drum/percussion pad thing that he almost constantly played along with the set and to be honest it was way overused. Jules even had to turn round and tell him to stop during the vocal breakdown of Ronski Speed’s Are You which was one of the only proper trance tracks played all night. Most of the set was the typical bootlegs with chunky bass lines that Jules seems to go for these days. It was an ok set but nothing compared to when I saw him in 2003 out there and he played such gems as Polaroid – So Damn Beautiful, Michael Woods – Solex, 4 Strings – Let it Rain, Azure – Sunset, Lost Brothers – Cry Little Sister, Mauro Damagio – I’m Damaged, Cloxx – Clocks, the list could go on and on but you get the idea.

Next up was Richard Durand who I’d never seen before but heard many good things about. He didn’t disappoint, immediately tantalising the crowd with snippets of Underworld’s Born Slippy dropping in at strategic points. He would later drop a full remix of the track but it was nice to see a DJ properly cutting up the set. He also wasted no time in playing Madagascar which has been around for a while but I wasn’t complaining. Having not been clubbing in a while it was only the second time I’ve heard it played out. The rest of the set continued as it started really and the crowd seemed to be loving it. My mates had moved to the back room in favour of electro and housey stuff and on the decks at that point was Howard from Take That! Apparently he was actually really good and I went in to catch his last tune before he handed over to Jules and John Kelly. Kelly was using some kind of USB or midi controller laid out like 2 CDJ’s and a crossfader to do all his mixing. He also used a lot of effects from the device. Jules by this point had sunk far too many vodkas and I witnessed a total train wreck mix before I headed back to the main room. For the last 2 hours the decks were manned by Gavyn Michel and the Viceroy and I’m not sure what order they played in but to be fair they were probably my favourite sets of the night playing some real uplifting trance much of which I didn’t know but it was very refreshing indeed to hear justice done to my favourite sound. All in all Judgement was a really good night but it is a shame that Jules is not at the top of his game anymore.

Monday was our last full day as we were due to fly back Tuesday night. I’d never been to Privilege, once home to Manumission but its reputation goes before it as the world’s biggest club with a capacity of 12,500 or so we were told. Tiesto is now the resident on Mondays and although I’m not all that keen on him as a DJ it was sure to be a top night with impressive lighting and special effects entertaining the capacity crowd. As we queued for the bus at Bar M my mates managed to get on the bus before me and I had to wait 10 minutes for the next one. With no phone on me there was pretty much no chance I was going to find them for the rest of the night. I tried to put this thought behind me and was determined to have a good one anyway. The club does look enormous when you first walk in and can barely even see Tiesto, like a dot at the very end of the club under a huge structure of lighting trusses and screens. I gradually fought my way through the masses towards the main dance floor in front of the stage. There is a swimming pool in the club behind this section of dance floor where the lighting operators worked from a booth in the middle of a bridge over the pool. Then behind this there is another huge dance floor and there are balconies all round the club for VIP’s and merchandise areas.

I was pleasantly surprised by Tiesto’s set and really enjoyed pretty much all the tunes he played. He played lots of remixes of big Indie hits like Kings of Leon, Killers, The Gossip etc. The atmosphere was pretty good and everyone was loving it, especially when he dropped a remix of the Chilli Pepper’s “The Other Side.” I had a really good time despite never finding my mates and ended up sharing a taxi back with some other random people who turned out to be really nice. You come across a real mixture of drunken idiots and very friendly people in Ibiza and luckily I had met the latter on this occasion. As I walked back from the taxi rank I finally saw my mates ahead of me and caught up.

The last day in Ibiza we were meant to go out on the boat for a proper boat trip but things didn’t realty work out there so we ended up chilling by the pool. In the evening we managed to get all the people who’d been staying in the apartment for the week out for a nice meal at the curry house in the west end before we had to leave for the airport.

I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and it was better than my last one in 2003 because I met a lot of people out there who were working and this really made a difference to the experience. I hope I will able to return much sooner than the last break of 6 years so who knows maybe I’ll be back there next summer.

If anyone has actually read to the end of this you deserve a medal and I am very grateful. I just wanted to do a proper day by day account so hope you enjoyed the read.

[MarkL]

Good read mate, glad you had a good time! Wish I had to cash to go back this year, have been for the last year but decided to go for 2 weeks in Bulgaria and spent far less than it would have cost for 1 week in Ibiza.

[Aza]

Superb account there - real great read and thoroughly enjoyed.

Sounds like you have a cracking time and really enjoyed yourself with an awesome experience.

Thanks for the report

[Tremor]

no worries guys thanks for reading, much apreciated

Edited July 27, 2009 by Neuro
Double post deleted

[Aza]

So appreciative, you said it twice

[Paulwebster]

You missed me by one week..................

Jules's set from the week you were there is Podcast number 7........

[JasonB]

Superb report, well worth reading,makes me wanna go one year all the more now!

[Tremor]

sorry about the double post, im on a very dodgy 3g connection these last couple of weeks and it took so long to post that reply it must have gone through when I thought it failed.

Cheers Jason, Im glad you enjoyed it.

Paul - which podcasts are you refering to? does Jules record his JS sets as podcasts then?

[Number2Fan]

Thanx for sharing...........only made me more jealous.......but I still liked it!!!

[Marty Mayes]

Good read indeed mate sounds like jules was well hammered lol

[FuzzY-LogiC]

thanks for that report, it makes go to Ibiza even more.

I'm really considering going in 2010, hopefully with a mate or two... we'll see

[Number2Fan]

I am definitely going next year!!