“It’s all about the music” reads the tagline for Amnesia’s highly sought after Friday fiesta. Completing its third season this year and with Italian extraordinaire Marco Carola at its helm, it’s clear that first-rate, quality music is the entire foundation for this stripped back event, making Music On a chief contender for the title top techno night on the whole of the island.
The party is often packed with a strong Italian following (Carola is, of course, their champ) but mostly it is very international and it’s a dead cert that a booming crowd will chant “Music On! Music On!” as the final basslines trundle out in the mid hours of the morning. That’s right folks, the mid hours. Enjoying a successful summer with familiar faces like tINI, Jamie Jones and Carl Cox all gracing the turntables in the Terrace, it’s the one revelry where it pays to stick it out until the very end no matter how tired your two-stepping toes are; the Magic On mystique happens as the sunlight begins to stream through the ceiling.
Taking into consideration the fact that you might be putting a long slog in, it’s smart to arrive at Amnesia a little later than usual as Carola is renowned for continuing his sets even past 9am. But this is Closing Party territory and a shindig this popular was jam-packed by 3am with queues reaching a vast waiting time of two hours. Early bird catches the worm and all that jazz this time then?
By 4am the revellers welcomed to the Main Room Music On favourite Joseph Capriati, a talent who is rapidly becoming recognised as one of the DJs at the forefront of techno. Hailing from (yep, you’ve guessed it) Italy, Capriati has adorned the Music On DJ booth a whopping five times this season, standing in as the main attraction for an absent Carola twice in July. The universal appeal of Capriati is apparent after even just moments of watching him. His natural charisma and sincere passion whilst on the decks makes him an instinctive entertainer and is the reason why he has become such an in-demand player. The rapid pace of Chus and Ceballos vs Leonardo Gonnelli’s Soledad rattled through the Main Room’s colossal speakers as smoke surged out of the ice cannon to the holiday-makers below. Capriati let loose with a mix of upbeat, raw and robust techno. As he lead the crowd down innovative sonic avenues, the Italian paid homage to fellow Ibiza darling Maceo Plex, teasing the crowd with snippets of his ENTER.Space track before divulging into his GusGus remix masterpiece Crossfade. Finishing up his solid techno-fuelled set with the weird and wonderful Visceral (Part 2) by James Warren, Capriati encouraged what clubbing fans know as a dance-floor sit down.
As the clock struck 8am we made our way back through to the Terrace which was still crammed with the hard-core clubbers. Carola had been playing from 4am but the party of two halves always splits when the sun beams through the roof panels, awakening a whole new level of intensity. The venue erupted like a popped cork from a champagne bottle as the final stage of the morning began and the crowd began to slacken, giving the dedicated ones left bonus dancing room. Carola's signature stripped back, minimal techno kept feet moving as he effortlessly streamlined through one emphatic bassline to the next. Only now and again would he tease in the odd vocal thanks to the Maceo Plex remix of WhoMadeWho’s smash Heads Above with its druggy hypnotism and eerie drones. Carola’s calling card is no doubt his ability to deliver the darkest and most twisted sounds with an outrageous intense delay and reverb build-up. As the funky This Is Sick by Solid Groove grew, the Italian would disengage the ravers by dropping the volume right down, before shooting it back up, sending the dance-floor in to fits of chaos.
Music On is well and truly a marathon not a sprint, and as the time rolled on Carola went from delivering his brand of underground techno (like Rick Hirt’s Let My Heart Feel The Beat) to tracks with only the tiniest ticks that move them forward. Its runaway success was unmistakable as an impressive and faithful crowd were still fist-pumping well past the 11am mark. Carola cranked the effects as far as they could go up until quarter to midday then unfortunately but unavoidably the doors opened, striking fear in to the committed clubbers. The familiar ‘Music On! Music On!’ chants couldn’t even reignite the set as an apologetic Carola praised and thanked the party-goers before leaving the booth to a round of applause.
No doubt the mammoth magnetism of Music On will continue into 2015 but for now thank you Marco Carola for a summer of unforgettable Friday nights and, of course, Saturday mornings. It well and truly has been ‘all about the music’.
WORDS | Francesca Evans PHOTOGRAPHY | Amnesia
