Ibiza party time? Not for the Guardia Civil

Ibiza party time? Not for the Guardia Civil

1 October, 2007 | 5.16AM

• Written by: Industry Boy
• Filed under: Music News: dessous recordings, mulletover, phonique, tam cooper, will saul

The message is precise. Call 0034678198365 at 11pm sharp. An answer phone message bleeps. ‘Hello this is Mulletover. For our Ibiza closing party tonight head north to the town of San Juan. When you get to San Juan turn left towards Portinax. 5km down the road you’ll see a dirt track on the right.’

The Spanish taxi driver on the way over seems a bit confused by our directions and tries to persuade us to go somewhere else but we insist that we really do want to go to the middle of nowhere at 1am.

“Look at this, I can’t turn the car the door get scratched you see,” says the taxi driver angrily as he attempts to minimize the damage to his cab as we maneuver down a black rocky path overgrown by bushes and trees.

This is the end of the road literally.

We pay him and he reverses off into the darkness leaving Industry Boy and my two rave compatriots Dwayne and Talulla alone, in the middle of the woods with nothing except the full moon to point out the difference between hard ground and a mud puddle.

We better be in the right place.

Above the trees Dwayne spots a shining beam flash out across the sky, and then another in rotation, like clockwork.

Its source is a lighthouse about a mile away.

Like confused moths, we head towards the light.

Unaware of the possible dangers lurking ahead, we walk as slowly as possible.

After 15 minutes we reach a cliff edge.

Some red and white tape warns us that certain death awaits us should we step over the line.

Some 20m below, the sea crashes into the rocks.

Thankfully, a deep reassuring beat of house music can now be heard.

And in the blackness the faces of equally bemused clubbers can be seen.

We’re not the only fools to have followed the rave carrot out here.

At the end of the path sit two girls under a sun umbrella with a flashlight.

They’re collecting ‘10 euro donations’.

At the base of the lighthouse is a DJ booth, a cash bar, and visuals projected on an dilapidated concrete outhouse.

There’s about 200 clubbers gathered so far, with many more on the way.

This might just be the best rave location of all time, and well worth the night hike.

A faceless DJ drops the Will Saul and Tam Cooper remix of Phonique ‘Bang’ [check it out in the player below], the perfect midnight tech house beat for an outdoor moonlit rave on the White Isle.

It’s also the official first record of our Ibiza trip – we only arrived a few hours ago – and already we’re dancing under the stars.

There’s a few recognizable London faces gathered.

Mulletover run some of the best underground techno and house parties in London, and nearly all of them are in unique and cool locations like this one.

Except none of them have the romanticism and elegance of this cliff top in Ibiza.

Dwayne, Talulla and Industry Boy do a secret handshake and prepare for a long night ahead.

Then the music cuts out.

“It’s just a technical glitch,” I tell Talulla. “Illegal raves always have one or two, it’s all part of the underground experience,” I say.

Five minutes later though, there’s still no beats.

A girl from Fabric then tells us that the Old Bill have turned up – the Guardia Civil, in vans, uniforms and force.

They’re the same lot who searched Industry Boy’s scrotum for drugs at the DC10 opening party back in June.

By and large, they’re the biggest party poopers around and not exactly known for their tolerance of clubbers.

Please for the sake of Ibiza’s free party spirit, let them go away, we’ve only been here three minutes.

“Can’t the Mulletover lot just bribe the cops?” asks Dwayne.

It’s a fair point indeed. Surely the promoters would have prepared for such an eventuality with a big wad of cash and a pack of donuts?

Whilst the police have a duty to uphold the law, we aren’t hurting anyone having a little boogie here in the middle of nowhere.

There are no neighbours, except a few fireflies and spiders.

After another 10 minutes of speculation, some disheartened clubbers make for the dirt track back up the hill.

We follow, after a burly Guardia Civil cop shines a flashlight in our faces and tells us to bugger off in Spanish.

At the umbrella entrance the two girls who had been collecting money seemed to have scarpered.

No doubt, a refund is out of the question – that’s one of the problems with illegal raves getting busted.

We could cry, but we laugh instead about the abrupt end of our first night in Ibiza.

As we walk back up the long dark hill, Industry Boy realises life is too short to let the rave police come between us and a good time.

So we go back to our hotel room and have an afterparty despite not actually having partied in the first place.

This year has seen unprecedented police activity in Ibiza, at the opening parties the Guardia Civil were all over the island and closed down a number of clubs including DC10 and Amnesia.

Many free parties too have been shut down during the summer.

Cocoon’s afterparty at a villa too was closed down by the police.

The question is, have the Spanish finally had enough of the hordes of foreign clubbers who come to the island each year to party?

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