Hi everyone
I’ve just got back from a little jaunt to a place called Ibiza, I dunno if you’ve heard of it? Anyway I thought I’d report back to you with my findings about this obscure, little known island…
Pre-ramble
I went with my lovely girlfriend – both of us total Ibiza n00bs – plus five battle-hardened Ibiza veterans. Given that most of us are now in our thirties, we’re not the balls-to-the-wall party-every-night-of-the-week nutters that we used to be – these days we’re less Jip and Lulu from Human Traffic and more Tim and Daisy from Spaced, if you’ll pardon my 90s pop culture references (which tells you everything really, I can’t even think of a hip, cool reference that isn’t ten years old). So our mission for the 7 night stay was to go to a minimum of two big parties and spend the rest of our time chilling, sunbathing and sight-seeing.
Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with all the details of the sight seeing, nor the alcohol consumed (think of a lot of alcohol and then add a shitload, to the power of braindeath), speaking of braindeath, nor the book I read by the pool (World War Z by Max Brooks – not the sunniest of reads but it kept the post-rave blood pumping). Instead I will condense it all down to a few entertaining* bullet points in the form of…
Hubie’s Ibiza Highlights
#1: Space and Carl Cox – The two big parties that we chose to attend – We Love Sundays and Carl Cox – The Revolution Recruits – both happened to be at Space. For the uninitiated, Space is massive. Fucking massive, in fact. We spent half our time in the Covered Terrace (think room 1 at Fabric but with more orange people prancing about wearing sunglasses) being entertained by the likes of Claude VonStroke, Justin Martin, John Rundell and Nick Fanciulli. The other half was spent in the gigantonourmous temple of dance, the Discoteca, where we raved the night away to the house and techno stylings of James Zabiela and Carl Cox. It was the latter who stole the show, naturally. Armed with his famous bag of techno bangers and a pair of kick ass ice cannons, the big man smashed the Discoteca to pieces with a four hour set chock full of thumping, underground grooves.
#2: Kryoman – I must dedicate a few words to Coxy’s amazing robotic rave sidekick, Kryoman. Sweet robo-jebus, what a sight. Picture the scene: you’re dancing away, having a great time. You’re also, er, starting to feel rather ’emotional’, if you get what I mean. Then, all of a sudden a dirty great dancing robot (imagine the Daft Punk guys in the style of the 80s version of Flash Gordon) emerges from the crowd, rising up in the air like some sort of synthetic disco angel covered in blazing white LEDs. Then, just when you think you’ve shrieked “what the fuck” too many times, Kryoman erupts, showering the crowd with sparks from his pistols and backpack. Maybe you had to be there, but it was quite an experience I can assure you!
#3: Dancing on the beach to Claude VonStroke & Eats Everything for free – On Tuesday evening, prior to our second assault on Space, one of our ‘beefa vets suggested we check out a little bar on Playa D’en Bossa called Sands. And by The Beard of Claude we were glad we did because we discovered a throng of people boogying down, both inside and outside the bar, to none other than Dirtybird legend Claude VonStroke and man-of-the-moment Eats Everything. Barely 48 hours earlier we had been getting our stomp on to the bearded duo surrounded by sweaty clubbers on the terrace in Space, and now we were dancing to the very same chaps in the relative freedom of the playa, completely gratis. Only in Ibiza. Can you imagine that happening in London? There’d be a queue all the way down Kingsland High Street for sure!
#4: Sunsets at Kumharas – I know it’s a bit of a cheesy cliche and I know you can see sunsets anywhere in the world, but there are sunsets and then there are Ibiza sunsets. On the advice of our Ibiza veteran friends, we avoided the crowds and hefty drinks prices of the better-known Cafes Mambo and Del Mar and instead opted for the even more laid back atmosphere (yes it is possible) of a lovely bar/restaurant/marketplace called Kumharas, located on the outskirts of San Antonio, in Ses Fontanelles. There we sipped mojitos, smoked shisha and listened to an eclectic selection of trip hop, classical, jazz and balearic beats as we watched that famous sunset. A sub-highlight, if you will, had to be hearing the DJ drop DJ Shadow’s Midnight In A Perfect World just as the sun became re-acquainted with the horizon that evening. Pure bliss.
#5: The weather, chilling by the pool and doing absolutely bugger all – Not much to say here really… 30 degree heat every day, clear blue skies, a swimming pool and a fridge full of Estrella Damm**. What else is there to do except sunbathe, swim and read a good book? Oh yes, drink lots of nice, cold beer. That’s what a holiday is all about imo. Lovely.
Right, I think that will do. Of course there were many more highlights to tell you about, but I’m aware of my tendency to ramble so I’ll leave it at that. The only thing I will add is that if you want to know more just go there, if you haven’t already. I certainly hope to go back sometime, as soon as my bank balance recovers.
Thanks for reading. For those of you who are missing your Hubie Sounds fix, I will post up a set of Balearic-themed mixes that I knocked together prior to this holiday very soon. And of course, Hubie Sounds returns to the NSB Radio interwaves next week, watch this space for updates.
Hubie x
* Disclaimer: Not really entertaining – might actually induce coma.
** This blog is not sponsored by Estrella, unfortunately. Although my holiday may as well have been… ‘burp’.
Tags: carlcox, claudevonstroke, dirtybird, eatseverything, estrella, ibiza, kryoman, kumharas, sands, space
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