There was plenty of speculation on who would be closing the best open-air club on Ibiza in the weeks leading up to the grand finale of Ushuaïa. Having gone through some serious talent over the summer, the pressure was high to end the season with a bang, so when I started hearing rumours that the French trio Apollonia were to close, I started to get seriously excited.
Low and behold, an uncharacteristically underground line-up (when compared to the Ushuaïa season, though it's something we've now come to expect) was released and my party spirits were raring to go. With Uner b2b Agoria, Andrea Oliva, Eli & Fur, Los Suruba, Maya Jane Coles, Nina Kravitz, Nic Fanciulli b2b Joris Voorn and Apollonia on the bill, musical bliss was guaranteed. The doors opened nice and early at 12pm to maximize in fun and games, with the entrance barricaded by a dark construction of metal with lots of old TVs hanging from it showing eerie clips from horror movies, especially zooming in on the eyes.
The eyes were a running theme for this year's closing campaign with billboards plastered everywhere telling you to “close your eyes…listen to the music” which is exactly what I intended to do. Rooted to the front left of the podium as Agoria took the show and played one of his Innervision releases Scala, an older favourite of mine. Next up was Maya Jane Coles followed by Nina Kraviz, both of them absolutely smashing it. Kraviz in particular has that steady signature groove and with her ethereal stage presence supported by the sexy background visuals totally had me in the palm of her hands.
The stage itself was impressive, but I expected nothing less as Ushuaïa has for years been at the forefront in sexy and suave production antics. The whole stage was built shaped as an eye, with an explosion of led lights surrounding it, and particularly sexy visuals behind the DJs in the so called “pupil”. I couldn’t wait for it to be nighttime, as we were handed 3D glasses at the entrance that made looking at the stage a hallucinogenic experience, as if looking through a trippy and very colourful kaleidoscope. Absolutely stunning. And as if that wasn’t enough of course we had the pyro technics, the ice machine, the sexy 70s clad dancers and the pool fountains splashing away, all in celebration of the last dance at Ushuaïa.
Soon we were in for another b2b, now also playing together for La Familia, Joris Voorn and Nic Fanciulli are no strangers to each other, and although the crowd was having it all day, it was when night time hit that all the freaks really came out to play. The dance moves got bigger, the crowd got sweatier, and the music only got better. Nic and Joris put on banger after banger including a summer favourite Acamar by Frankey and Sandrino, Fusion by Steven Cock, Hyde Park by Jeremy Olander and many more – all soaked up by our music hungry ears.
And then… everyone absolutely lost control as Apollonia came on stage. A blast of confetti, signifying the grand finale and a steady stream of music that only Apollonia could deliver had me completely enthralled to the very end of their set. Congrats to Ushuaïa and all involved for working so hard to make it another amazing season. Slowly the clouds were rolling in overhead and it really felt like summer's ending, a real goodbye until 2016.
WORDS | Maya Dupont PHOTOGRAPHY | Ushuaïa
