That's What I'm Talking About!

Space

Space was more or less exactly what I expected an Ibiza club to be like. Thumping house, lasers, dry ice, back-to-back pilled-up, coked-up, mashed-up clubbers, everyone cheering the DJ when he plays one of the tunes of the season... Hardcore.

Unfortunately, contrary to every piece of advice we were offered, Fatboy Slim played the opening set, so we only caught the last 2 tunes he played. Gutted. But people were saying they had heard better... I guess it's fairly common that a DJ makes it big as a producer, and everyone assumes that they'll be the world's best DJ as well... By the way, if anyone wants any of these sour grapes, I have plenty...

DJ Marky played a mental set, as usual... He has so much energy when he DJ's, it seems to seep out onto the dance floor, so that, even more so than the average DnB crowd, everyone was going totally crazy... it also made me regret chugging a litre of water and 2 cans of red bull before going into the club! But my stomach soon caught up with the rest of me as I gave it large with the rest of the Terrace...

Just after 3, I noticed a load of people flocking into the main room, and figured out pretty sharpish that Carl Cox was about to come on... I was having such an awesome time in Marky's set, I could have stuck in there, but I've heard him a few times before, so I decided to check out what all the fuss over Carl Cox was...

SO glad I did. Carl Cox has been doing a weekly night at Space for 5 seasons now, and he OWNED the main room last night. He knows exactly how to get the Space crowd going, and then keep them going all night long, until every last bit of dancing energy you ever had has evaporated into the smoky air above you...

My ears are still ringing now, at 1.30pm the next day... I may have permanantly damaged my hearing :-)

and with that last sentance, I've turned into my Dad.

Seriously though, I'm sure they'll be fine... (I know dad reads this ;-))

We're having a team time now, and then I shall be taking an extended siesta.

C

The World's Biggest Club

Saturday night took us to Privilege, which is the biggest nightclub in the world... And with a capacity of around 10,000 it feels like it! They even have a Guinness World Record logo on their welcome sign!

So by now, we had more or less gotten into the swing of arriving at a club when British clubs would be closing, we rocked up at about half 1 and we felt uncool - the fashionably late possee wouldnt be arriving till around about 4. But then, they wear sunglasses in nightclubs, so I guess i can handle being uncool in comparrison ;-)

Anyway, our reason for such an uncool early arrival was that the Main Room DJ from 1 till 3 was Luis, a good friend of 24-7 Ibiza, and a Christian, so he had sorted us all out on the guest list, and in return, we had promised to come for his set and pray for him as we danced. I didn't get to meet him in the end (he doesnt speak a word of english - although my spanish probably would have stretched to small talk!), but it was cool to be there to support a brother as he played to a crowd of several thousand...

The layout of the club is phenomenal. the DJ booth is smack in the centre of the main room, surrounded by a huge area of water. You can only get to it via a thin metal walkway, and everything looks a little space-age... It looks like something out of the crystal maze!

Again, The dancers were so beautiful and talented that I felt utterly inadequete (see Pacha Post), but what the hell, this is Ibiza, no one cares how you dance! Although, however, the INCREDIBLY camp (and probably gay) guy wearing a g-string and wrapped in a net was less than pleasant.

After Luis came off, the DJ that came on after him (apparently pretty famous, although I dont remember his name!) was doing an electro-house set, which most of us weren't much in the mood for, so we went to check out the side room, where the AppleFunk Sessions were going on... the first thing that struck me as I came in was that there was a big fecking tree growing in the middle of the room - pretty impressive! This room felt tiny compared with the main room, but as I spent a bit of time in there, I realised that the capacity of this room alone must be well over a thousand - it was just diddy in comparrison with the main room!

Anyway, the music... The AppleFunk guys combined two genres I love - house and funk... So we spent the next two hours going crazy in there! Apparently one of the applefunkers was one half of Soul Central... well known for their "Strings of Life" remix... Best of all... they gave me a free applefunk keyring. I guess im still having difficulty parting with the "give me free stuff!" aspect of student life!

So, a top quality night - Probably a lot better when there's someone playing stuff I like in the main room, but there was something funnily intimate about the side room, despite its size! I'd definately reccomend it as a venue - I wonder if they do private parties....?

Tonight (Tues) we're heading off to Space, another of the superclubs - Carl Cox is Resident, DJ Marky playing on the Terrace, and guest DJ: Fatboy Slim! be jealous.

Don't forget the important stuff about why i'm here is at this blog: clicky

God Bless,

C

And the sun goes down...

Ibiza Sunset

Without any doubt, this is one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen. Unfortunately the pics here aren't mine - i only had my camera phone, and the resolution isn't amazing, so these are from google images. but, rest assured, this isn't one of those situations where professionally taken pics make it look more beautiful than it actually is...



The cafés have speakers pointing out onto the beach in front of them, and each one plays its' own unique blend of chillout, perfectly tailored to make the mood perfect. Last night was my first one, and i decided to choose my own soundtrack, so i walked a little bit down from the cafés and stuck on my iPod. Café Del Mar '98 by Energy 52 seemed like the appropriate choice, since that tune was more or less written for the view I was about to witness, and it worked perfectly - a very intense and unusually fast tempo for a chillout track, but something made it suit the sun's descent - You would be surprised how fast it goes down, once it gets to within a few cm of the horizon (alright maths geeks! don't you lot start!), ten minutes later it's gone...



I took advantage of this opportunity to thank God and worship Him for the sheer beauty he has placed all around us - I can't describe quite how awesome this experience was (and, for the record, I mean awesome in the original sense of the word, not awesome like a hot-dog).

As I stood there and the sun reached the halfway point, making a perfect semi-circle on the horizon, I felt a little choked up, and shed a few tears, partly of joy, partly of worship and partly because I couldn't really find any other way to express myself - and I know it's a little bit 'faux deep', but this quote came into my head: "Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in", and it felt like it was the least i could do to squeeze a few tears out to thank God for it all

Then the best (and also, worst) bit:

The last sliver of light disappears. Everyone there (and that's a lot of people) bursts into applause. The concept of this taking place is a fantastic thing, but in reality it all seemed a little unspontaneous - I had known that it happened every night long before I came out here. However, despite the fact that it was more due to peer pressure than anything else for most people, some small part of it still felt special. I imagined, as people whooped and cheered, what had been the motivation for the first person who ever applauded. I like to think that it had been totally involuntary, the same as my tears, someone searching for a way to use their body to celebrate the indescribable beauty they were witnessing.

That's why I applauded.

Thank you God.

C

Sunset Strip - Daytime

Yesterday, in my afternoon's free time I decided to head down to sunset strip with the intention of checking out the world-famous Café Del Mar. Pretty much everyone i had spoken to who had any experience of Ibiza told me that, in fact, Café Mambo next door was far better, but I wanted to see for myself... Turns out Café Del Mar doesn't actually open until 5pm (it was half 4) and also, at first glance the decor at Mambo looked far better. So, Mambo it was.

Café Mambo

This place is built around 2 things: 1) Relaxing to the point of being SO relaxed, you slip into a coma, and 2) the utterly beautiful Ibiza Sunset...

Since I was there in the afternoon, sunset wasn't on the cards yet, but relaxing SO was. A glass of coke on the terrace (which finishes about 10 metres from the sea) and spending my time not really doing anything.

Mambo (and Café Del Mar too, although I have yet to experience it first-hand) specialize in chillout music, which I adore and I was pleased to see that, even at half 4 in the afternoon, Mambo had a DJ spinning for the punters... when I arrived, California Soul by Marlena Shaw was playing out onto the beach. There couldnt really have been a better song to sum up the mood - Everything seemed very cool and funky, while at the same time very chilled and soulful - And the set stayed in that vein - So much that I didnt even bother getting out my book (my original intent). I just sat, looking out to the tiny island to the west of San Antonio Bay and letting the tunes mix with the noise of the sea. For a short while, I was alone in a bustling Cafe - Ibiza had never turned into a tourist attraction, never become a clubbers Mecca, never even been colonized. I was the first person to ever discover that view and the sea's rhythmic wash included a bassline and a sax solo...

It took quite some time to snap myself out of that trance.

On a side note, Mambo had it's own little quirks of attention to detail that just added small cherries to the delicious pink icing of the location I was gorging myself on.

Branded Straws, PR's and waitresses who actually seemed to take interest in you rather than see you as a big walking Euro sign and as i mentioned already, DJ's in the daytime who seem to know EXACTLY what song you want to hear EXACTLY when you want to hear it.

Perfect.

I went back to Sunset strip at sundown yesterday to watch the world's most famous (or so the bars claim) sunset, but we missed it by about 30 seconds - we heard everyone's reaction to it as we walked down the last street. We did stick about to soak up the atmosphere that all the bars there lay on, but it just wasn't quite the same without that view of the sun disappearing playing and replaying in my mind. We're going back in about 4 hours, and we'll be in plenty of time tonight!

Pacha

So, the first real night down, and on the cards was a club night in Pacha

By the way, I'm gonna use this blog mostly for personal reflections and club/bar reviews... Hopefully you're interested in what we're actually doing as a team too, so you can have a look here, which we'll try and update as often as poss...

So, Pacha. Arguably the best house club in the world. Certainly the best in Ibiza. (This is all hearsay as yet, but from the looks of their summer line up & residencies, i don't see any reason to contest it...)

Last night was "Flower Power." None of the permanant community had been to this one before, and someone had told them that it was old skool house - so, the kind of stuff that got me into clubbing in the first place. Turns out it was a 60's and 70's night. With hindsight, a name like 'flower power' should have been a dead giveaway. ;-)

So, a brief review...

Atmosphere:

Phenomenal. This was my first superclub, so the sheer size of it was always going to blow my mind, but the true greatness of the place was in the attention to detail. Many of the clubbers had made real effort, getting dressed up in their best hippy/disco clothes, and the decor was almost all specific to the night. The tech staff must literally spend every minute between closing (sometime between 6 and 8am) and opening again (about midnight) changing the decor. And with the place open every day, thats no small task.

Bars:

Since we're an alcohol-free team, I won't be reveiwing what the booze was like. however, because i'm an ex-bartender (and more importantly, because i'm a total loser) I went to have a look at how good the bar staff were... Bear in mind that, because of the club's reputation, I was expecting the best. They weren't. I've seen far slicker bar teams in london, and even cambridge for that matter. Still, the club's layout as regards to bars was interesting: instead of several massive ones, they had about a dozen tiny ones (1-2 tenders each) which would seem to be a far better idea... less walking about to get a drink, less queues - hopefully. Anyway, with 330ml water bottles at 8 euros, and red bull at 13 euros, i decided to smuggle in my own water and spend the equivalent money on better things another time... like say, a house.

Dancers:

Pacha employs a number of ridiculously beautiful people to dance on its podiums - once you're past the self-consciousness of how beautiful they are, and how good they are at dancing (and therefore making light of my weaknesses in both departments ;-)) it's a pretty impressive show: Costumes, hair and make-up (covering all different fashions from these decades) were the sort of quality you'd expect on a film set, but not only did they dance, but every half hour or so they'd put on a show of some kind, involving the clubbers... my favourites included

- During "Yellow Submarine" 4 dancers carrying a massive (8' by 4') painted wooden cut-out of the Beatles' yellow submarine through the crowd encouraging the clubbers to be the sea!
- Handing out sparklers to EVERYONE (c. 4000 people, by the way) to wave during "Give peace a chance"
- Girls handing out heart-shaped lollies from the podium whilst loads of tissue paper hearts fell from the ceiling.

Loads of fun - customer involvement is definately the way to go in a club!

DJ's:

As I said, the main room was 60's & 70's, so mixing that sort of stuff is not an easy thing. The mixing wasn't anything to write home about, but the playlist was pretty sweet... everything a good 60's/70's night should have :-)

Then we saw that Rob Da Bank was playing the Global sideroom at 3, so we went in there for a bit of that action... I dont know much about him, but I'd heard good things. He played a fantastic set - mostly hard house, but a little bit of allsorts thrown in to mix it up a bit! my favourite little bit went like this:

*hard house* --> Blur/Song 2 --> New Order/How does it feel? --> Wink/Higher State of consciousness --> *Hard House*

seamless. impressive.

So, despite being in the mood for an awesome house night, i still had a pretty sweet time. Although i would say just one thing:

Going to flower power at Pacha is like asking Raymond Blanc or Gordon Ramsay to cook you a hamburger. It'll be the best damn hamburger you've ever had, but it'll still be just a burger.

I think to truly 'experience' Pacha, I need to go on one of the nights it's famous for. Pete Tong is resident on friday nights, and i'm free this friday...


Where's that ticket seller?

C

Woah! We're going to Ibiza!

I'm sat in Gatwick airport, wasting time before I fly...

I'm about to go out to Ibiza, leading a team from 24-7 mission, and we're going to go over there and see what God wants us to do.

past teams have seem Him do some awesome things - I dont know what i expect, but I DO expect something.

If you're a praying person, please say a little one for me over the next couple of weeks - inadequete doesnt even begin to cover how i'm feeling.

God bless everyone, i'll soak up some rays on your behalf :-)

C

Maybe we need this to happen...

clicky

I suppose it's time I blogged...

My life has developed a nasty habit of happening... If I'm not careful, it will have all happened before i get round to doing anything i want to do...

I'm not talking about all of those lists people create of "things i must do before i die" - granted they would be cool, but not exactly what I'm driving at...

5 weeks ago was Transmission, the weekend of training for the 24-7 team I'm going on to Ibiza on Saturday... I came away from it on a huge high, having spent some amazing time with God personally, as well as receiving some awesome teaching... and I spent about a week continuing to live in the type of relationship with God that I've always wanted. well notentirely - i didn't raise the dead or anything, but a lot better, that's the point... i was praying regularly, hearing from God back, and reading my bible regularly too... But it all slipped away after a week or so.

And since then, the phrase that has continually popped up in my head (in one guise or another) is "I'll sort out my relationship with God tomorrow" - And I can confirm, by nearly 23 years' personal experience, that tommorrow never comes.

So here. Now.

Time to start sorting things in my head out. Time to get my prayer and Bible study routines sorted. Today. Because, after roughly 30 tomorrows, a month has left me feeling a bit distant from Him.

peace

C