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IBIZA UNDERGROUND CHRISTMAS PARTY with CHRIS LAKE
Ibiza Underground: Reviewed
Reported by Adam Symbiosis for HarderFaster
It’s been said before the Brits love to have a drink. Unlike our more, er, civilisised cousins across The Channel, drink is for drinking, not just for dinner. So when an opportunity came up to go and review an all you can drink party, there was only one person at HarderFaster to send; Adam Symbiosis packed his glass and headed off to Ibiza Underground.
All you can drink places are usually one rung under out of town superclubs, filled with the dregs of society or kids looking to get absolutely hammered, drinking watered down pish and listening to “chart toppers of yesteryear” before rounding off the night with a fight and a kebab. My own youthful (and probably shameful) memories of visiting places like Caesar’s in Streatham are little more than a drunken haze of epic proportions yet when the option came up to cover Ibiza Underground at The Mass in London’s Brixton I was intrigued. For one The Mass has some great memories for me, it being or having been a home to countless favourite promotions.
With a door policy of £45 for gents and £35 for ladies, then a free bar all night, this could have turned into a nightmarish free for all or it alternatively it might have turned out to be the credit crunch party for 2008. They’d obviously done something right however as this was the first birthday and I knew the promoters had already carried off a series of successful mansion parties and the well subscribed Dirty Angels.
Getting into the party what instantly stuck me were the colours and the amount of people rushing around! This was nu-rave in your face, with crews dressed up to the nines. People had made such an effort it was almost as if they were in competition with each other – with each successive group of friends more colourful than the last. Neon tutus, acid rave style boiler suits, bumble bees and more, that’s right there was more – it was almost like being thrown into a time machine to 1988 as 1600 multicoloured kids rocked on to house and electro. Having been at The Academy earlier and fitted for back in black, I felt completely uncolourful!
Walking around the rooms taking pictures was something of a challenge as everybody wanted their picture taken and everybody wanted a bit of attention. But it wasn’t just the punters who had made that little bit of effort. While the club decorations were nothing to be surprised by - drapes, lightboxes and the like, especially compared to a psy trance party, performers were everywhere adding an extra bit of pizzazz. From dancers to trapeze artists to stilt walkers, everywhere you looked something else was going on. A saxophonist jammed to the house in one room, while later on a fire juggler performed to an enraptured crowd. The attention to detail in this was impressive and just goes to show that the clubbing experience should be just that, an experience rather than just a room with a DJ in.
Outside, the whole of the front of the church building - from the side entrance for 3rd Bass, over the bridge and round to the entrance for Babalou - had been encircled with a wall leaving the area open to chill out and smoke. Forget being penned in like cattle being gassed like other club’s smoking areas, this was more like Ministry Of Sound’s outside terrace and a relaxed atmosphere ensued – there was no extra change to entry, while over to one side a mobile café was serving hot drinks and snacks to some weary and of course some wired clubbers taking a break form the party inside.
Back to the party and things were still in full swing across the three rooms with more happy ravers everywhere. The music though was beginning to get to me and it was possibly the one down point of the night. With no flow to the music, as my wingman pointed out, there was no definite musical identity to the night. At one point it was house designed for warm up (at two or three am I might add), the next it was techno, then prog house, from one set to the next and occasionally from one track to the next, I just couldn’t get into the sounds being busted out. A problem caused by having to shut the techno room on the night and accommodate the DJs in the other rooms I was told. It’s just as well the rest of the club with its performers and second to none atmosphere was so good and that kept me there.
And that’s the whole point really, in the five or six hours I was there I saw and talked to some truly drunken people – holding up the side for Britain I assume – but I never saw any argro, no arguments, no fights. We watched people bump into each other and drinks fall out of hands and off tables on to the floor; no one cared, they just went to the bar for another one. I talked with a couple of the bouncers who told me they got much less trouble at this party then they do many others at this same venue.
Overall, this was unlike any other all you can drink ‘experience’ I’ve been to before. It’s was positive and fun, full (and I do mean full) of up for it ravers. Forget about laying out loads of money and wondering where your night and your dinner money for the week went, this club could be the answer to your credit crunch worries, this promotion the answer to bring kids back into the clubbing fold. Now all they need is a beach and a trance room and this might well be the ultimate Ibiza Underground experience in London. |
