To everyone's serious disappointment (especially those ticket holders desperately attempting to scale locked walls of the entrance) BOOOM! did not manage to open in time for last night.
KIDDING!! – it totally opened. It's been a long and bumpy road to get to this point, but the Ibiza Town superclub which stands in the scaffolding that also held Penelope, later Heaven, has finally pulled it out of the bag in the best way possible.
Standing outside BOOOM! in the residential area along the marina, you could never guess that the biggest party on the island that night was going on a few metres away. To accommodate the apartments surrounding the site, the robust sound system had been perfectly insulated and nary a party peep leaked out of the entrance's double doors. Through these, however, we were immediately enveloped in this high roofed, mid-sized clubbing cave.
Upon entry we found ourselves at the back-left of the club, with a bar to the right and some wide stairs leading down to the main dance floor before us. The floor was rectangular with the DJ booth only slightly raised above the crowd at the far end and another bar flanking the left side. There was the standard friends-of-the-DJ area behind the booth, whilst the paying VIP stretched along the right hand side of the dance floor in two raised tiers, dotted by hostesses siphoned into tight black corset tops. Yes, there is quite a lot of VIP space, and the view from there is great, but thanks to the layout this simply does not feel like a VIP heavy club. The section is not ‘on show' or invading the space of the main dance floor in any way; it's a very good example, in fact, of how to combine the two clubbing experiences without treading on any standard-ticket toes.
The custom designed Pioneer sound system was also a popular topic of discussion in the countdown to BOOOM! opening and I'm glad to report it performed beautifully. Speakers were set into various wall cavities around the club, with the main dance floor edged by some intimidatingly large and robotic speaker towers which not only produced the finest sound waves, but also looked as if they might at any point open up and emit the odd death ray or two, Transformer styles. We caught DJ and creator of BOOOM!'s Thursday night Circus residency, Yousef, making the rounds, who impressed upon us how satisfied he was with the quality of sound - so that's a big tick for BOOOM! on the audio front.
Having mobilized quite early in order to observe the club filling up, we arrived during the beginning stages of Kaz James and Destructo's back-to-back set, which was later to become so much more than a warm-up. For now, Monkey Safari Hi Life rang in the air and pale gobo spotlights scraped across an almost empty main floor. Other early-markers clustered themselves around the club's edges, waiting passively for something or someone to shift them into fiesta gear. Ibiza workers can always be counted upon in these situations, and sure enough the energy of a group of young worker lads on the dance floor began to reel in the less bold, two by two.
Thinking back on their set, Kaz James and Destructo proved to be heroes of the night, smoothly traversing the incredibly varied musical terrain that the occasion demanded, with unwavering energy. Starting at the easy, melodic end with tracks like Hi Life and Claptone's No Eyes, they later got deep and dancey, testing the new Pioneer with bassy numbers like Gorgon City's Real and Duke Dumont's Streetwalker. Once the whole house was well and truly on the hop they plucked funky classics out from yesteryear, like the Motown hit Aint No Mountain High Enough, and as clubbers raved deeper into the morning Kaz and Destructo began to pull out savage electro bangers to satisfy the growing need to let loose and match the myriad of laser beams combing and cross-hatching the floor.
The energy that had been steadily escalating hit a wall some time after 3.30, as those who were hanging out for Avicii (set to play at 3) started to despair. But once again the musical chameleons Kaz and Destructo met the needs of their crowd and shifted skins, blasting out Pryda's Allein which incitied vigorous clap-alongs and catapulted the atmosphere back up to the rafters. By the time Sebastian Ingrosso took over for a completely impromptu morning set there were few who would have had the night any other way - he rocked the house. Avicii, it transpired, had decided not to play and so dipped out on the club and his fans by going home. Such a shame he didn't stay to see how BOOOM! filled up and got along just fine without him.
So the original headliner was a no-show, which in my opinion makes the success of this opening party all the more impressive. The best part was the raring-to-go crowd comprised of the most socially disparate components you could have imagined. San Antonio workers shuffled next to older men in suits; stilettoed Spanish dames popped their booty into UK holidaymakers who filmed and hi-fived island eccentrics throwing the more unusual moves. Countless island VIPs made the rounds including BOOOM! managers Danny Whittle and Mark Netto, the aforemention Yousef, Defected head Simon Dunmore, Pioneer's Dan Tait - and those are just a few who ventured beyond the velvet rope. Venue mogul himself Giuseppe Cipriani was throwing shapes on the main floor and I even spotted his fully-suited bodyguard breaking out the two-step, before remembering he probably wasn't supposed to.
It's this kind of unscripted mixed party bag that makes Ibiza like no other place and if BOOOM! maintains this positive energy, a certain no-show will be begging to play. Glad you could join us BOOOM!, it's been worth the wait.
Photography by James Chapman
