Space opening party

Space opening party

3 June, 2007 | 6.20AM

• Section: Music News Topics: Ibiza, Industry Boy Blog
• Written by: Industry Boy

We lie on Bora Bora beach mid-afternoon soaking up the rays and the Ibiza atmosphere. Topless tanned girls float by on sunloungers. This is the life. 

A group of muscular blokes in speedos do back flips and handstands in the sand, as Talulla pervs at them from behind her huge dark sunglasses.

Soulful funky house drifts through the air whilst a DJ spins records in Bora Bora beach bar. Sangria soothes our blood.

It’s times like this that you realise what life is all about.

The hours of slaving away back home in London, putting up with cramped living conditions, expensive rent and pollution is worth it you get to a beach in summer.

Why can’t life be like this all the time?

“Let’s get some food,” says Dwayne.

“We need to eat a big meal before the carnage begins.”

We find a scanky café near our hotel and order three pizzas.

Talulla spots a cockroach running along the floor. Great.

After lunch we head back to the hotel and get showered and changed.

We pour ourselves huge vodka limons and blast out tunes on some mini speakers Dwayne bought along with his iPod.

By 6pm, and after Talulla goes through three costume changes, we’re ready to leave.

We take a group photo which we call the ‘before photo’ and then head towards Space, the island’s most famous superclub.

Ibiza revolves around Space.

When the club officially opens its doors at the beginning of June it signals four months of hedonistic tourism and clubbing madness on the island.

When the club closes at the end of September Ibiza becomes a quiet and tranquil place once again.

As such, the opening and closing parties are the busiest weekends of the year.

The streets of Playa d’en Bossa are busy with young people wearing their most glamourous outfits, and a tailback stretches into the distance.

At the club there’s chaos at the door.

“The guestlist is shut,” some girl complains to her friend.

Talulla pinches my arm.

“Hey it’s not my fault you took so long getting ready,” I tell her.

“Don’t worry, we’re on John Digweed’s list so it shouldn’t be a problem getting in.”

I squeeze my way to the front of the throng gathered around metal barricades.

“Excuse me, we’re on John Digweed’s guestlist,” I say to a lady with a Space tshirt on.

“Sorry I’m afraid the guestlist is closed.”

Talulla pinches my arm again.

“Look we’ve just flown all the way from London as personal guests of John Digweed, could you not make an exception?”

“Join the queue” she says, before walking off.

Shit. We head back onto the street and find a bloke selling Space tickets in a bar.

“I sell you tickets, you buy drink,” he says in broken English.

Stitch up. The drinks cost 15 euros altogether, the tickets are 55 euros each, probably the most expensive club entry in the history of the world.

A few minutes later we’re inside Space surrounded by thousands of beautiful people and hundreds of sunglasses.

The club is totally rammed.

There’s broken glass everywhere - whoever came up with the bright idea of serving drinks in real glasses is a bit of an idiot.

After negotiating our way to the toilets and through various dancefloors, we settle on the arena out back in the car park, which is now bigger than ever before as the stage has been moved to one end.

Carl Cox spins a set of funky house and disco-tech grooves, every so often getting on the mic to enthusiastically thank everyone for “making this the best Space opening ever.”

The bouncers rush past us carrying a floppy bloke who is passed out.

There are always one or two people in Ibiza who overdo it.

The combination of heat and sunstroke, the lack of drinking water facilities, the overindulgence in booze and drugs is a dangerous concoction if you’re reckless or stupid.

But Talulla, Dwayne and me are Ibiza veterans and after seven trips, we’ve learnt from our mistakes.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

For the next few hours we dance, sip slowly on vodka limons (they’re 14 euros a pop), and watch the other clubber peacocks who exuberantly ruffle their feathers vivaciously in time with the music.

This is a strange kind of mating ritual, a mass gathering of beautiful people from all over the world, who dance and party with a big smile on their faces.

It is a curious phenomenon indeed.

This evening there are so many gorgeous women, and quite a few stunning men too (Talulla reckons).

Industry Boy’s phone vibrates with a message from the girl I snogged outside Tesco in Southampton last weekend.

‘Are u in Ibiza? I am!’ it reads.

I don’t bother replying. I’m having so much fun with my best friends, I can’t really be arsed to chat to a girl.

She starts calling, but I send it to voicemail.

Steve Lawler comes on the decks after Cox, and takes things down a more proggy path.

The sun begins to set and Lawler’s dark house beats are the perfect soundtrack to take us into the night.

Before long, we find ourselves on the terrace dancing to Smokin’ Jo.

“Fucking Smokin’ Jo is such a try hard,” complains Dwayne.

“She’s suddenly playing minimal, when she used to play house, talk about jumping on the bandwagon.”

Talulla defends the female DJ, “I think she’s really good actually,” but just as she finishes her words Smokin’ Jo produces a disgraceful train crash of a mix.

Oh dear. Time to check out Diggers.

Inside the Discotec, the dancefloor is busy but not too jam packed.

Digweed has just started and begins a three-hour journey of electronic house and techno.

With his hypnotic groove chugging away, our bodies soon gravitate towards the front and centre of the dancefloor, right beneath the powerful ice machine.

Within three tracks he has us hooked, and we find ourselves locked in a hole of extra-sensory perception.

After an hour, Talulla and Industry Boy head upstairs to the outdoor chill out terrace, leaving Dwayne to ponder Digweed’s “immense” set.

Outside, the sleazy night air clears our heads and we lie back on sofas looking and laughing at all the wide-eyed clubbers.

Some funny faces are being pulled tonight.

After 30 mins we head back downstairs and join Dwayne for the rest of Digweed’s “epic set.”

At times the music drifts towards trance, and Diggers drops mammoth minimal trance tracks like Stephan Bodzin ‘Papillon’ which takes over our bodies and our souls.

Talulla rolls her eyes at Dwayne, who has a strange concentrated look on his face, his eyes are closed and his head is down like he’s trying to find a solution for the most complicated algebraic problem.

Digweed is his favourite DJ, and when he’s in the ‘zone’ we’re not allowed to disturb him.

Around 3am when John Digweed finishes we walk arm-in-arm towards the exit, exhausted by the happiness of today’s events.

Back at the hotel, we recline on sofa beds and chat nonsense till the sun begins to rise.

Eventually we pass out at about 6am.

• (1) Comments
• (743) Views