Space’s Opening Fiesta was like being at an all you can eat buffet... with so many artists and DJs to choose from in six different locations inside and out, your only dilemma was deciding who to see. This year, to help you cram as much tasty music onto your plate as possible, the generous guys at Space extended their opening time, starting the party at midday, and with a line up including Nic Fanciulli, Marco Loco, Pete Tong, Felix Da Housecat and of course The Chemical Brothers, there was definitely something to get everyone buzzing.
By six o’clock the place had already filled up nicely and in the queue toes were tapping to the pumping sound of Yaya from the DJ Mag-hosted Sunset room. Up on the Premier Etage, Ian Blevins was supplying the beats to a serene backdrop of the mountains and hot sun, and with his We Love... residency renewed we’ll be treated to a lot more of his great bass lines and soulful vocals in the coming months. He ended his set with Monkey Safari’s ‘Hi Life’, an oldie-but-goodie that created the perfect summer vibe and was a great way to welcome Ryan O’Gorman onto the decks for an equally excellent blend of house and disco, including one of my personal favourite tracks ‘I Feel Good Things For You’ by Daddy’s Favourite. Both these DJs are as essential on the White Isle as a jug of sangria and were great choices to open this sunny hang out.
The ‘Flight Deck,’ the Space car park that gets transformed into a huge outdoor stage just for the opening and closing parties, could only be described as epic, with an array of fantastic artists, heart attack-inducing confetti cannons, stilt dancers and big, big sounds. 2 Many Djs were quality, no surprises there, dropping teasers such as Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘Relax’ and P Diddy’s ‘Bad Boys’, upping the atmosphere and setting the tone for the rest of the night, which included Sasha and headliner Nic Fanciulli, who both played wAFF’s aptly-named ‘Ibiza’ in their sets- an absolute banger of a tune that will really kick off the season.
In the impressive main room The Chemical Brothers went down a storm, dropping relentlessly good tunes for their three hour set. The highlight was their nineties hit ‘Hey Boy Hey Girl’ which got everyone’s hearts racing and hands in the air. The last two and a half hours saw Nic Fanciulli and Sasha going back-to-back, and seeing these two respected DJs working together was definitely worth staying until the end for as their varying styles and song choices complimented each other’s signature sound.
As Space is such a vast venue with an assorted mix of nights and artists each week, the opening obviously had to cater to a wide audience- a hard task to achieve but there’s no doubt that Space succeeded in creating a quality night for everyone, clearly one of the reasons why it’s been rated one of the best clubs in the world. Now I’ve got just enough time to recover from that eighteen hour fiesta before Space’s residencies kick off...
Words - Lydia Laws, Photos - James Chapman
