Review: Mallorca Rocks 2nd Birthday ft. Kasabian

If someone had told me in 2006, when I was enjoying Kasabian at the intimate Bar M as part of the Ibiza Rocks nights, that in 2012 I would be seeing the Leicester band again at a place called Mallorca Rocks Hotel in Magaluf I wouldn't have believed it. How time flies and how many things have changed along the way. For starters, back then nobody was doing big events in hotels over this side of the Med (something common nowadays) and not even the most optimistic would've thought that the Rocks brand would explode the way it did opening hotels, shops, etc.

The excuse for my little trip to Mallorca was to celebrate Mallorca Rocks' 2nd birthday. I left Ibiza on monday on the same flight as part of the team that spends the whole summer between the two islands, to make sure their two nights run smoothly, who would be joined on tuesday by miss Nicola Bear, in charge of the DJ duties along with the new resident Sicarius.

A favourite for many holiday makers due to its buzzing nightlife and beautiful long sandy beach, Magaluf has a lot of things in common with San Antonio (home of Ibiza Rocks). In 2010 the brand opened a sister hotel to the Ibiza Rocks Hotel in the resort and started promoting some live concerts there. The venture was successful and they introduced weekly live concerts in 2011, becoming one of the most popular hotels in the municipal district of Calvià. Apart from their famous events on tuesdays (Mallorca Rocks) and thursdays (We Are Rockstars), they also have weekly pool parties and silent raves, the Mallorca Rocks boat party and plenty of one-offs (this weekend for example they had Steve Lawler and Audiofly and the next one, the BBC Radio 1Xtra event).

The addition of the Mallorca Rocks Apartments this year and the re-branding of the hotel Jungla next year will allow them to offer a total of 3.000 beds for 2013 (double the capacity than in Ibiza). The apartments are one minute walking from the Mallorca Rocks Hotel and the new hotel is right next to it.

So far they have two shops, one in the Punta Balena street (the main bar strip) and one in the hotel, where people can check their ever-growing stock of merchandise.

Like it happened in Ibiza, their arrival to Magaluf had its consequences with other promoters trying to imitate the concept but we all know they've always been leaders and not followers so they're ahead of the game.

The first thing that called my attention when I entered to the hotel was the size of the pool area. I knew it was big after seeing it in pictures but I didn't realize it was that big. Musically it wasn't different to what we saw one day later in Ibiza apart from the fact Zane Lowe wasn't part of the line-up. As expected with the visit of Kasabian, the venue filled quickly and it ended up being a very busy one.

TOY had the task of warming up the crowd and they did a great job with an incredible sonic discharge. The London band played some of the stuff that will be included in their upcoming self-titled debut album, like the awesome "Motoring", which sounds like Sonic Youth jamming with Lou Reed... certainly a band to watch out for!

Kasabian presented their latest album Velociraptor! (from which they played "Days are forgotten" -first song of the night-, "Velociraptor!", "Let's roll just like we used to", "Re-wired", "Man of simple pleasures" and "Switchblade smiles") accompanied by all the expected hits (like "Shoot the runner", "Underdog", "Where did al the love go?", "Processed beats", "Club foot", L.S.F.", "Vlad the impaler" or "Fire" -the closing number-). On a curiuos note, "Take aim" (sung by the guitarist Sergio Pizzorno) merged into "Everybody's got to learn sometime" by The Korgis and before they left the stage Tom Meighan sang acapella the classic "She loves you" by The Beatles... a perfect finale for a perfect concert!