It seems insane but in this season of clubbing plenty, hosting the world’s best DJs in the world’s best clubs isn’t always enough. The successful parties have done something more - they’ve built a community. We don’t just go to a night anymore, we’re part of the night; we stick branded tattoos all over ourselves, we go home with inflatables, we plaster ourselves in neon and we brandish our season pass tokens. One party cottoned on to this long before Enter, Tini and the Gang, El Row, Diynamic or Music On hit the scene…
Don your top hats people - Luciano and his Vagabundos are in the house. Luciano’s Cadenza parties have long been a playful fixture of the island nightlife and now have new digs to destroy in BOOOM!. The simplistic rectangle layout is about as different as you can get from Cadenza’s old home at Pacha, but the more I go to BOOOM! the more I like this no-fuss dance pit and it suits the Vagabundos well enough. Old-fashioned red lampshades were dotted suggestively about the interior which, with a few subtle touches: a bunch of roses here, an old suitcase there, was transformed into a naughty bohemian boudoir.
Luciano took the reigns at 3am and, with a well placed hi-hat, lifted the crowd from its zombie shuffle into a state of raucous animation. The customary rollicking bass line dominated his sound with generous percussive helpings and a splash of bells and chimes to add the ethereal tones Luciano has become known for. Throughout the set he kept pulling tune after tune out of the proverbial bag (laptop just doesn’t have the same ring to it) exploring realms where alternative instrumentation was paramount (for what is a Sunday without a sax solo?). One of the Island’s most loved aging hippies, Francisco - or as I call him, Old Man Ibiza - appeared in the booth at one stage and gave Luciano a fatherly pat on the head, an amusing contrast to the adoration of fans in the front row below him.
Luciano interspersed interesting creative indulgences with old and new classics for his loyal cohort, for example Basement Jaxx Flylife Xtra and Ninetoes Finder respectively. At about a quarter to five he picked up the pace considerably and played Josh Wink’s Oakish, as a nod to the Philadelphia artist to come. Each time the bass returned it seemed to get louder than the last, and now the Luciano claps were coming thick and fast. It seemed as though things were crescendo-ing to a close, but the changeover didn’t come about until 6am, when Wink finally took control. Though still quite busy, the crowd had thinned and subdued a little compared to its eagerness before, but Wink didn’t waste a minute in bringing back an energy of a very different kind.
Out faded the final Luciano track and in came the Wink machinery. Although he began in a surprisingly housey vibe with a heavy deep set groove, Wink soon wandered into techier soundscapes, eventually settling into warping synths which were both epic and hypnotic. He never let his audience trance out for long however, bashing out a brilliant booming bass which woke us all up with double and quadruple time hammering. Contrasting to the frivolity of earlier, Wink engendered an exciting rave atmosphere and the manic BOOOM! lasers finally had their big moment to the acidy gurgles of Memogram by Ambivalent and Michael L. Penman. Later, I was hardly surprised but infinitely pleased when I caught the familiar chuckles of Wink’s own Don’t Laugh echoing their way into the BOOOM! hall.
It was an interesting booking for Cadenza which in the end worked out, though Wink’s late start did cost him some dance floor bodies. Luciano curated a night of quality music but, in the end, it was with the aid of his rascal Vagabundos team and a room full of temporary top hats (aka us clubbers) that created one of the most animated atmospheres on the island. Even those in the VIP section were up and throwing themselves about with reckless abandon so that it seemed just to be an extension of the main floor. Everyone seems to be up for it at Cadenza, and that’s why people keep coming back.
