The changing tide of Ibiza’s Bora Bora 24 June, 2008 | 2.47PM
To most people, Ibiza is just an island in the Mediterranean.
For me, it’s always represented one of society’s most cherished beliefs - freedom.
The freedom, that is, to be hedonistic.
Hedonism is a pursuit or devotion to pleasure and at the core of dance music culture is a belief that we as humans have the right to please our senses, to feel good.
Dancing is pleasurable. So, too, is listening to good music, DJing, eating nice food, lying on a beach, having sex and taking drugs.
It’s impossible to deny that these things aren’t pleasurable, but the legality of say, something like drugs, is relative.
In the past, Ibiza has steered well clear of the murky world of relative morality and that’s what has made the island so attractive to the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit it every year.
But now, it’s illegal to dance on a table in Ibiza as I just found out at Bora Bora Beach Bar in Playa D’en Bossa.
Bikini-clad girls at Bora Bora Beach Bar
At its peak, Bora Bora Beach Bar represented everything that was great about Ibiza.
From the early afternoon, DJs used to spin chill out music and deep house whilst sun worshipers nursed their hangovers under umbrellas.
As the afternoon sun began to fade, the beats used to get more uptempo and funky and before you knew it, without any warning, a party would begin.
Girls would dance on tables in their bikinis, beers and cocktails would suddenly start flowing, and that hangover would soon be long gone.
You’d lose track of time because you were having so much fun dancing and making new friends.
Happy to be there: Bora Bora reveler
It was as pure an Ibizan experience as you could get, because it was free—in many senses of the word.
There was no security. There was no door charge. Bora Bora didn’t even have any walls (it was just a bar on the beach surrounded by some sun loungers and umbrellas).
Everyone was invited to the party too.
DJ
Gee Moore (who can be credited for making Bora Bora famous) used to spin eight, nine and even 10-hour sets sometimes, and kept the party going, year after year.
But then about three years ago, Ibiza’s authorities decided they didn’t like Bora Bora and started to impose sound restrictions.
Gee Moore in the end threw in his towel and decided to leave Ibiza but Bora Bora still continued without him.
At the time Gee Moore told me that he was sure Ibiza’s big club owners were out to get him and had forced the police to shut him down (the term disco mafia - a reference to the power that the big clubs have on the island here - became popular around that time), because Bora Bora was so successful; but there was never any proof in it.
A uniformed security guard at Bora Bora
When I visited Bora Bora this afternoon I felt like crying as it has changed so much.
There might have been dancing on the tables had there not been uniformed security guards telling clubbers off for attempting to do so.
One of them even had a wooden baton and he glared at people like a riot policeman contemplating whether to impose the will of the authorities.
The bar now has walls made out of glass and steel and the DJ is nowhere to be seen.
Oliver Lang spins whilst the party continues outside
When I eventually found the DJ booth hidden well inside the bar and away from the beach, I saw British DJ
Oliver Lang spinning to an empty room, whilst the crowd had the time of their lives outside.
“We’re not allowed to have music outside technically, so we have to turn the speakers towards the beach from inside the bar,” he told me.
It’s arguable that the new restrictions have ultimately severed the umbilical chord between the party and the DJ as the DJ can’t see the people, and the people probably think a CD is playing.
Bora Bora to me, feels like a parody of itself—the famous wooden sign is still there, as is the music, the palm trees and the sand, but it’s lost much of its original vibe.
It’s lost its freedom.
[Of course Cocoon was last night so that might have affected the amount of energy and attendees, so I hope I’m wrong.]
- Bora Bora has changed over the years. I remember my first summers in Ibiza and my first trips to Bora Bora (over 10 years ago) and they blew me away. I used to be dancing on the tables and having such fun, i even remember when it started to rain one day, jumping on the table and getting soaking wet ... but loving it ! It used to be my fave place on the island.
