First time in Ibiza: September 24th - October 2nd

TheHighroller

New Member
My review copy and pasted from another forum. There may be some specific things related to that forum in the review.

Well, well, well. It is finally over, and what a week it was.
The week started off pretty poorly with the airline losing my baggage, me losing my cell phone on the way to the airport, and the directions and address to the hotel conveniently dissappearing from my folder of papers. However, a nice lunch at the Port in Eivissa quickly lifted my spirits.

September 24th: Cocoon Closing @ Amnesia

Our week started off at Cocoon @ Amnesia. Upon walking into the club, my jaw immediately hit the ground, and remained there for a good amount of time. First of all, the terraza is the size of a football field. Usually with rooms this big, the décor is lacking, but on the Amnesia terraza, the walls have a very well done rockface design, giving it a cave-like feel. It has a pretty cool lighting system, and a couple of CO2 cannons. There was also a very large VIP area on the second level that went all the way around the perimeter of the room. The bars and the lighting up in the VIP area looked very classy, likely making the patrons feel less bad about spending the ludicrous amount of money bottle service must have cost (I don’t even want to know the price).
We at first thought this was the main room, but we were wrong. Throughout the week, we realized that in Ibiza, they usually open the terraza first, and open the discoteca (the main room) at around 2am, letting the headliners start right away. At Amnesia, it would be comparable to having the Kool Haus open first, and then opening the Guv main room later (only the Amnesia terraza is way bigger than the Kool Haus).
The night started off with some resident DJ I do not know the name of spinning chunky tech house on the terraza. When the discoteca opened, Richie was already on the decks, playing a lot housier than I’ve ever heard him play. As the place got fuller, he progressed into the funkier techno he’s been playing recently ala his WMC 2007 Essential Mix. The last 45 minutes was absolute Ibiza insanity with the several CO2 cannons the mainroom has going off all the time (although the C02 cannons at Guv kill the Amnesia cannons, sorry), the lights going crazy, and even someone being hoisted off the dancefloor, being carried by 4 people lol.

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Next came Sven Vath. I had been waiting for a long time to see Sven, and this was my first time seeing him. To be honest, I was a little bit dissapointed. He started off with some very mind-****ing tunes, but ended up being way too dark, mechanical, and repetitive for my liking. I gave him more of a chance than I would have given any other DJ that I was liking this little because I really wanted to like him. He was the main act for one of the parties I was looking forward to the most. He just didn’t do it for me though.
We kept checking out the other room where Ricardo Villalobos and Luciano were doing a back-to-back set and were just tearing the roof off of the terazza. Everytime I went in there, I had to tear myself away to give Sven more of a chance.

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All throughout the party, we kept asking around about the afterparty that we had heard so much about (Sven & co do a big afterparty after the opening, closing, and any other big Cocoon nights. Last year’s closing afterparty had around 3000 people), but no one seemed to know what we were talking about. We decided to leave early to rest and to consult Ibiza clubbing forums for the location. Considering the afterparty was supposed to be 10-12 hours long, and we had travelled that day, we thought it would be a good idea to leave early and rest. This turned out to be a mistake. Sven apparently got much better, and some of the lucky people who stayed until the end were given official invites and given the correct location of the afterparty. I wish we had stayed for this, but in hindsight, I think we made the right decision based on the information we had. Next time I go to Ibiza, I think I’m going to come a day before the big party, just go out drinking the night before, relax and sleep. I wasn’t able to enjoy this party to the fullest because I travelled on the same day.
Next, we went on a huge mission to find this afterparty. This is something I posted on the other forum right when we got back from our mission:

"Hunting for Richie"

This is a tale of the missions that two travellers undertook in order to find the alleged Cocoon Afterparty in Ibiza.

Mission #1 (5h30):

Seek afterparty location from shady cabby and good cabby.

Mission #2:

Attempt at communicating sketchy locations told by taxi to Magna (hotel reception).

Mission #3:

Wait for selfish woman using internet while we waited for the far more important purpose of locating Sven and Richie. Posted on Ibiza internet forum to see if anyone knew of the location.

Mission #4:

Chase man wearing Circoloco shirt in accordance with rule of thumb*.

Mission Break: Breakfast

MIssion #5:

Intercept another man wearing a Circoloco shirt in accordance with rule of thumb*. Alleged afterparty location #1: Port des Terrain (other side of island).

Mission #6:

Cab ride to Port des Terrain (20EUR).

Mission #7:

Realize that party is in fact not at Port des Terrain, casting the rule of thumb in a suspicious light...

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Mission #8:

Walk 45 mins in the farmlands of Ibiza to Cala Bassa based on hazy recolection of what a cab driver might have said. Saw goats, chickens, and an osterich. They had not seen Richie. They couldn´t be trusted anyway, as they were not wearing Circoloco t-shirts.

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(Riiiiichiiiie! Where aaaaare youuuu?)

(See video for interrogation of osterich)

http://picasaweb.google.com/jayfernandes/Ibiza02/photo?authkey=VhuuP0J5zKg#5119026504919449346

Mission #9:

Contine walking, no longer ocncerned with alleged Cocoon afterparty, but more with surviving with a low supply of H20, and an osterich on hot persuit.

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(huge hill where we ran from osterich)

Mission #10:

Located civilisation: a hotel with internet cafe, narrowly escaping conflict with Spanish ruffians.

Mission #11:

Dissapointed to see that no reply to the posted had been made. However, a new lead from the trusted Resident Advisor confirming that the afterparty was being held at Cala Lejos (alleged afterparty location #2 - otherside of island)

Mission #12:

Cab ride to Cala Lejos - 33EUR. Cab ride commenced with 3 simultaneous near death experiences due to drowsy woman recently awoke from siesta.

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(You can run, but you cannot hide!)

Mission #13:

Arrival to new alleged party location. No tunes. Only EU tourists in speedos. Jay comes to terms with reality. Graham however found new information about another alleged party location at San Antonio (other side of island). Although no Circoloco t-shirts could be found, sources were considered credible due to their Spanish origin.

Mission #14: Jay is going back home. Graham is initially in denial. Graham now comes to terms with reality. He is not happy.

Mission #15: Buy beer to drown our sorrows and a new ration of water.

Mission #16: Angry Irish tourists confired Spanish leads about new allegedc afterparty location. Also confirmed that their friends were also stupid enough to wander around the island looking for RIchie´s cool doo and Sven´s shorts.

Mission #17 (14h00):

(Yes, I know there were a lot of missions)

Cab ride to Eivissa - 15EUR.

Total time: 8h00-14h00 minus break = 5.5 hours.

Total money spent: 68EUR in cab fare.

Richie could not be found.

Moral: When Richie does not want to be found, he will not be found (re: "Stealth" Richie)

*Rule of thumb: Anyone wearing a Circoloco shirt is a good source of tourist information you may not find in an official tourist information centre

Tuesday, September 25th: Danny Tenaglia & John Digweed @ Space

We slept for the remainder of Tuesday, and woke up around 12am to check out Tenaglia and Digweed at Space. We entered the Space terraza where Danny was already on the decks, playing a decent set. Most tunes were average, some were amazing, and some were not good at all. I was actually not that impressed with the terraza at Space. It was too dark, and the lighting wasn’t doing it for me.
After a while on the terraza, we entered the discoteca. The discoteca at Space is definitely my favourite discoteca in Ibiza. The layout is amazing, and I love the placement of the 3 C02 cannons: 2 shooting sideways into the crowd, and one shooting directly downward. The lighting in the room can be amazing, but it can also be a little tacky. I wasn’t a fan of the tacky name scrolling at the back of the club, and at times it seemed that the lighting guy was just pressing all of the buttons on the control at the same time, giving it a wierd “birthday party” kind of look.
Digweed was playing when we walked in, laying down his signature melancholy, dark and groovy prog. He started off very druggy and slow which is exactly what I wanted to hear at that time. After a while though, he started to get a little boring due to failing to change it up at all, so we went back to the terraza to check out Tenaglia, who was hammering the tunes out quite nicley compared to before. However, I wanted to get back to Digweed as soon as possible because I knew that we would be seeing Tenaglia again later that night, and I had really been looking forward to seeing Digweed due to enjoying his sets recently. When we walked back in, Digweed had picked it up noticeably. He programmed his set with his usual Digweed perfection, dropping bomb after bomb of smooth proggy goodness, each consecutive explosion increasing in its intensity. By the end of his set, people were going nuts for every single track that he dropped.

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Next was Tenaglia, who played a decent-to-good set. It was a bit darker and proggier than I would have liked, but it still did the trick. It was very up and down with parts boring me to the point of forcing me to leave the room, and other (but fewer) parts making me jump up and down in a fit of Tenaglia-magic induced frenzy.
(Tenaglia magic here:)

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I think I’ve decided that although Tenaglia is in my Top 5 when he plays marathon sets, I don’t even think he’s in my Top 20 otherwise. His shorter sets ack that versatility that I love him for. All in all, this was a great night that I enjoyed more than the Cocoon party. At the end of the night, we dragged our exhausted bodies back to the hotel to rest up for the next day.

Thursday, September 27th: Bora Bora

Simply put, Bora Bora was amazing. At first when we got there, it was kind of annoying that it was so busy that we had to put our towel way at the back of the beach on top of broken glass and cigarette butts, but the plethora of topless, scantly-clad European beauties quickly and successfully distracted me from the dangerous and filthy terrain we were tanning on.
The DJ at Bora Bora was banging out the harder beats in the early afternoon which was alright, but I definitely would have preferred some deeper house to get me into relaxation mode to sit in the sun. However, when in Rome, do as the Romans do: I decided to skip the tanning and start getting smashed :D. As time went on and people started getting drunker (or sketchier, or both), people stopped lounging, started dancing, and the fun and antics began (see this video for antics. Put it on full size so you can actually see what's happening).

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The music was kind of cheesy, but it fit the atmosphere perfectly with everyone dancing and singing along to all the familiar songs.

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The cheering as the planes went by is something that I knew about, but was still pleasantly surprised to see. (I have a really awesome video with Dubfire's new song and a plane coming in, but it was too big for Youtube. :( )
We were thinking about checking out Guetta and Tenaglia tonight, but I was still hurting from the back to back Cocoon and Tenaglia/Digweed nights, so we decided to call it a night.

Friday, September 28th: Sander Kleinenberg & Pete Tong @ Pure Pacha Closing

We weren’t supposed to go out tonight, but due to seeing Sander and a huge crowd at Café Mambo, we decided to check it out. By Friday, I was in my trademarked bitchy mood due to too much partying, so as soon as I walked in and saw all the bar stars, and more than 50% of the club being taken up by bottle service, I immidiately hated it. The opening DJ was actually pretty good (can’t remember what his name was), playing funky and soulful house, so I was cheered up a bit.
The last time I had seen Sander was when he destroyed System Soundbar back in November of 2005. Since then, I’ve heard many negative reviews of his performances at This is London, so I was kind of skeptical when he hit the decks. At first, my worries were put to rest when he started playing the Sander prog that I love him for, but after about half an hour, he switched to Top40 House Megamix mode. It was pretty bad. I honestly felt like I was listening to DJ Danny D on z103, only this was worse. After a really bad mix from one overplayed song to another, Jay said, “That’s it, I’m leaving” and took off, lol. I decided to stay because after spending 50EUR on this party, I didn’t want to leave after a couple of hours. Three tracks after Jay left, I was one “You may be black, you may be white, you may be jew or gentile” type vocal away from leaving myself, so I decided to check out the side room, where a DJ whose name I cannot remember was laying down an interesting deep house set with occasional minimal track thrown in. I stayed in this room until Tong came on.
When I got back into the mainroom, I decided that I liked the crowd afterall. As a matter of fact, besides a couple of groups of people old enough to be my parents, it was refreshing to be in this crowd, given that it was probably the youngest crowd I saw in Ibiza. The crowd was much like the This is London crowd – barstars getting botched, which is always entertaining.
It was also on this night that I finally connected with, and “got” the Ibiza crowd. I remember the precise moment, where Tong dropped a track, and it seemed like everyone in the club (even those in bottle service) were pumping their fists. I had problems connecting with the crowd on the nights before this. I felt kind of disconnected with them. It’s kind of hard to explain, but needless to say, after Pacha, it was kind of like a veil had been lifted.

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[size]Sunday, September 30th: We Love Space Closing[/size]
As we passed the searchers, our senses were immediately greeted with the Ibiza party vibe – the vibe that I have reminced about every day since I’ve returned – that was taking place in full force on the Sunset Terraza at only 3pm. We spent the first half of the party on this terraza, barely checking out the other rooms at all. Although it was pure cheesy party tunes, the vibe in the other rooms paled in comparison the the Sunset Terraza. It seemed as if the whole crowd was jumping up and down at every single climax.

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At around sunset, the Sunset Terraza started to get very crowded. The lack of space, coupled with Tom Novvy’s bad track selection and even worse mixing (can someone please tell me why this guy headlines the Sunset Terraza?), I decided to finally give the other rooms a try. Up until this point, although the music had been decent, the party had been really fun, so it was easy to get into it. Once it got dark, it seemed like the vibe died down a little, and the music just got weird. It wasn’t doing anything for me at all. I tried in vain for 2 hours to find music I liked in all the different rooms, but to no avail. At about 12:30am, it was about an hour and a half until any DJ we knew was going to be on, and with Circoloco the next day, we decided to call it a night.
We Love Space during the day on the Sunset Terraza was definitely the best display of the “Ibiza party vibe” that I saw during the 8 days I was there. The music selection was alright at first, but after dark, the music was “Wtf is this?” at best.

Monday, October 1st: Circoloco @ DC10

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Well, it’s not secret that I had been waiting to check this party out for a long time. Before I left for France (when I still had reliable access to the internet lol), I was watching Circoloco videos on Youtube for about 20 minutes a day on average. The amount of hype and thus expecatation I built up for this party was insurmountable. Needless to say, my expectations were blown the **** out of the water. Circoloco @ DC10 is by far the most unique, raw, dark and twisted clubbing experience I’ve ever had. I’m even hesitant to call it “clubbing”, because other outings under the same guise are completely unlike what I experienced.
The club is located basically on a dirt field off of the highway. When walking up to the door, we knew this place meant business when we were greated with this:
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The place has an ambulance parked outside at all times, lol.
After waiting for an excruciating 30 minutes for the terraza to open, being in the center of those red walls that I had seen in so many of those videos seemed almost strange and surreal.

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(That's right, first one on the terraza. Notice the wierd circus music playing in the background lol)
When I ran up to see the set times, my jaw hit the floor.
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Looks like my favourite DJ will be doing a back to back set for at least 6 hours (ended up being closer to 9 hours).
I'm glad I got there early because most of the sleep-deprivation inspired antics that took place (or maybe that were noticeable) in the day light when the club wasn't that full.

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The terraza started filling up around 2:30pm. Clive Henry played an awesome set. I have now seen this guy 3 times, and although he may not be the best mixer, he always plays at least a "very good" set in my books.
The amount of people in the club stayed relatively the same for about 2.5 hours. I started worrying about the club being too empty, but my fears were put to rest about halfway through Tania Vulcano's set, which was alright, but kind of a bit boring. It was no longer empty and freezing, but now a packed sweatpit.
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At about 5:45, the door near the DJ booth opened, and Ricardo Villalobos and Richie Hawtin appeared which sparked a huge response from the crowd. They warmed up for about 30 minutes and then started dropping their techno bombs. They played a very techy, but dark techno set, sith many of their tracks sporting rolling, low actave bass lines. Their set for the first three hours was exactly what I would have expected from these two: points of stuff that was a bit too abstract, and points of banging techno insanity.

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(Richie playing Monoblock - Untone)

At about 9pm, when Richie had been hogging the decks for about an hour (much to my satisfaction) he pulled a classic Richie move that is a little hard to explain, but makes the crowd lose it every time. He'll play boring, very bassy minimal long enough for you to just start getting frustrated. Then, all of a sudden, he'll throw in the highs of a ripping techno track, and crank the volume, causing the crowd to erupt in a volcano like fashion. He'll then start throwing in crazy samples and sound effects. You can only imagine what this was like at DC10. This spurt of madness (my favourite part of the night) continued from about 45 minutes, which I enjoyed sitting on a speaker nursing my badly battered body. I was absolutely unable to dance, or even jiggle my legs at all. I couldn't stand or even move around to the music while sitting on the speaker. However, this Richie mindtrick gave me a second wind that I thought was impossible at this point.
The environment in the day time at DC10 is much unlike the environment at night. It morphed from a sketchy playground to a hot, sweaty, packed party that I can only describe as an orgy without the sex. A party this packed (especially given how exhausted and tired I was) usally puts me in a very sour mood. This party was different. I found myself front and center for more than half the night, getting stepped on, pushed, sweated on, burned by cigarettes, and people blowing cigarette smoke in my face. However, I didn't care at all. I didn't even have to make an effor to not care, the annoyance didn't even register. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't have had it any other way.
At about 11:45pm, after fighting tooth and nail with the limitations of my body, my body gave a very pronounced sigh, and I had no choice but to give into exhaustion. Although I felt the extreme exhaustion added to the experience until this point, I wish I had a little more in me, because the "______" in the "18:00 - _____ time slot ended up being 3:00am!. Oh well. I did way better than I would have at any other party given how tired I was.
Circoloco is a venue for the most extreme level of hedonism that I have not seen anywhere else. This hedonism is taken part by the patrons, the staff, and even the DJs:

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Circoloco means Crazy Circus. A very appropriate name for the place. The Circoloco experience is the product of everyone taking part in that extreme for of hedonism. Everyone in the club was a bit off in some way, whether that be because they were wearing strange costumes, were extremely intoxicated, participating in strange antics, going into absolute frenzies losing it to the music, or any combination of the above. It seemed like everything I enjoy about clubbing (antics, costumes, minimal/abstract music, and high excitement) was being taken part in majority (whereas I’m used to only some of these antics taking place in a minority).
There are convincing rumours that this will be Circoloco's last season. I hope this isn't true, because as far as I've see, there is no party that is even close to similar. Also, I can't think of any other club that I woul dwant to travel to go to more than this one.

Although a bit ridiculously expensive, I had a great time in Ibiza, and I really want to go again. I'm already planning the next trip. Summer 2008, or maybe even this New Year's Eve anyone?[/color]
 
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Brilliant

Brilliant review...:lol:. I really enjoyed it reading. The best part ist DC10. I had similiar feelings it, when I was there in August. It`s unique. U have to live/experienxe it...:lol:
 
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