Clubland Ibiza

Posted By: Steve | Updated: 21st Aug 2008 | Viewed: 6333 Times

After seeing in the first night of the season in Mallorca we hopped on a flight from Palma to Eivissa, Ibiza. Clubland has never had a night in Ibiza before and I’m sure some of the Islands established players choked on their coffee when they heard that we were coming. Some people work very hard to protect the islands image as the destination for the true discerning clubber who likes ‘proper’ music. The reality is, and has been for a long time, that Ibiza is a tale of two destinations.

The cool society style clubbing is located in Ibiza town and in the area inland around the airport – Pacha, Privilege, Amnesia, Space and DC10 are not places that you would find your typical commercial clubber from an average English town, they have always been the stomping ground of those are really into their more specialised music and DJs from the worlds underground scenes and long may that continue. San Antonio on the other hand has been a more mainstream destination for a long time and it’s most popular night, Judgement Sunday, has always provided a wide cross section of music. The West End, save for its location and size, is little different from places like Magaluf but save for the years where trance was dominating the charts and clubs alike around the turn of the millennium, nobody had yet tried to aim squarely at the commercial dance market there. So this year we decided that it was time to take the biggest brand in dance to the biggest holiday destination in clubbing.

Run by one of the top promoters on the island, Simon Belofsky, Clubland has found its home in Ibiza at San Antonio’s legendary venue Es Paradis. Set out more like a Roman palace than a nightclub, Es Paradis is a truly unique venue famous for its plants and the dance floor that turns into a swimming pool twice a week at the Fiesta del Aqua nights. For many years though it has struggled on other nights to compete against some of the bigger brands in San Antonio’s other venues. This summer that has all changed.

After landing just after lunch time we were whisked to the hotel in the usual Spanish style by a taxi driver who has obviously never got over not making it as a Formula 1 driver. We then headed off to the venue for a quick tour and sound check. Graham, Pez and Junior had followed us over to Ibiza from Mallorca and we were joined out there by Kelly Llorenna and DJ Kuta from N-Trance.

The evening was swiftly upon us and following a dinner on the front at the sunset strip (highly recommended to catch the sunset up there if you’re going out to Ibiza for the first time) we were off on a crawl of the pre-parties through the West End, down into San Antonio Bay and finally to the rather excellent Plastik just round the corner from the club.

It has to be said that the music in most of the pre-parties as we arrived was quite trendy, but the reaction when the Clubland DJs took over the decks in each venue said it all – from 128bpm to 145bpm in a few seconds and to a person they all went wild.

The queue was stretching round the block as we approached the club and even though it was still early once we fought our way inside, the place was already nearly full – the very best answer that we could have provided to those who said there was no demand for the music in Ibiza.

The rest of the night was, put simply (and to paraphrase one of the best music sites on the net) ‘amazing’. Kelly’s performance of Set You Free was, as it always is, simply electric and Junior and the DJs had a similar effect which kept the club rocking till dawn. It is a slightly surreal experience to see the sun rising above a club (the club has no roof in summer), but it all added to the unique experience that we probably couldn’t have got outside of Ibiza. Tunes worthy of mention for sending the place truly mental were De-grees vs The Real Booty Babes – Apologize and Ultrabeat vs Darren Styles – Discolights.

The pictures below tell the story better than words can but if you want a moving version of our trip, the video to De-grees vs The Real Booty Babes – Apologize was made with footage filmed from our trip and inside Es Paradis. Clubland has landed in Ibiza though, whether its San Antonio’s busiest night or not yet will have to wait till the end of season figures arrive, but its certainly snapping at the heels of the current #1 and provided Es Paradis with the busiest night its seen in years. We’re there every Tuesday till the 9th of September, if you can’t make it this year don’t worry, I’ve got a feeling will be back next year…