If you find yourself asleep in a bush at any point during your lives, speaking from experience I can say it probably means one of two things. First, that you've been inadvertently tossed into the street - presumably because of some rent-related dispute / marital affair; second, that you've decided to take a siesta among nature during an after party. In my case - fortunately or not - it was the latter, and here's a little tip for you, campers - the point at which you crawl out of a bush should always be the point at which you stop the party and go home, because when you wake up and continue to dance with twigs in your hair and spiders in your ears, it is almost invariably a Bad Sign. And this goes some way to explaining why this Cocoon review is only appearing three days after the actual event. Sorry about that.
But let's rewind a little, because before you start casting aspersions you should know how this story started. It began on the Amnesia terrace, with Cocoon opening party excitement pumping through my veins and the faint hint of a dull head courtesy of Space the day before. I was surrounded by the kind of excellent people that epitomise a Cocoon fiesta, Dixon was entwining the kind of ludicrously lush melodies that make your spine tingle and overall I was encompassed by a sense of pretty overwhelming elation. As is often the case with Dixon, he read the crowd like a prophet - conjuring a mood that had everyone floating around like butterflies in the wind. Bicep's remix of Isaac Tichauer's ‘Higher Level' was enough to take us soaring to the next plane, but it was Acid Pauli's ‘Nana' that truly skyrocketed us there.
Then Sven Väth ascended the booth, launching headfirst into Cocoon's seventeenth season with ‘Vibrationz' by wAFF, instantly switching up the vibe like the mischief maker he is. We went hard for a while, engrossed in a different kind of flavour - one that made us brave enough to venture to the main room where Slam were throwing out the kind of dark, bone-crunching techno that would make your granny cry. We took a pounding in there for a half an hour then headed back to Sven, who was going about his business with customary aplomb. Slowing it down; speeding it up, he gave a masterclass in tantric music - taking us to the breach with Kevin De Vries' achingly beautiful, ‘Time Traveler' and then back again with The Persuader's, ‘Over Stigen'. And just as we were teetering on the edge he pulls out Lil Louis', ‘French Kiss' and finally, we're spent.
Spilling out onto the street come 6.30 AM, there's a consensus that six hours of Sven and co is certainly not enough, and it's this point we make the decision to hunt out the after party. Four hours, several million failed attempts to hail a cab and one Smirnoff Ice later and we find ourselves in the north, dancing round a pool in the sunshine with fellow ravers desperate for more destruction. The rest, as they say, is history.
WORDS | Abby Lowe PHOTOGRAPHY | James Chapman
