The amazing, heritage-listed medieval fortress, Dalt Vila, was the venue charged with hosting Disclosure's 'Wild Life' show last night at the top of Ibiza town; a magical place (even if the floor is not designed to dance) where we had enjoyed many electronic music heavyweights thanks to the IMS celebrations at the beginning of the season. Surrounded by the spectacular views of town, the lights of the port and Ibiza's many rooftops, the attendees could enjoy the masterclass that Disclosure and Flume provided, filling the stage with british dance, garage and deep house sounds.
Before 9pm the artist who laid the first beats on the wild party was the UK's SG Lewis, who kicked off the afternoon with a melodic house set to welcome the first guests. He was followed by Bicep, the duo hailing from Belfast which already has experience on Ibiza stages, being a strong part of the We Love line-ups in past years. Their performance, with a strong bass of electronic sounds beneath an amalgamation of jazz and funk was the perfect precedent for one of the most anticipated moments of the night, the Flume show.
A big screen with different visuals switched from video clips to random images, with flashing lights and a lot of smoke coming from the stage all night. The party production was a bit minimal for my tastes, but at least it let the beautiful location and the quality music do the talking. By the moment the electronic music producer Flume took over the decks the venue was packed, with a happy crowd enjoying the beautiful sunset to the rhythm of his tracks, including Holdin' On, from his debut self titled album. Garage, house and this kind of light dubstep flooded the dancefloor, those upon it unable to stop dancing and clapping the performance that the Australian guy was providing with his charismatic stage presence, cheering them to put the hands up. To highlight the moment he played You & Me (for all Martians who don't know, it's the amazing Disclosure song he has remixed) and I thought the crowd was going to jump to the stage and join him. Sadly it only happened in my mind, but Flume kept the party up, combining his own productions (Insane, Space Cadet) with remixes of other tunes like Hermitude's Hyperparadise.
The music went out and so the lights when Flume said goodbye to Dalt Vila stage, so we just waited until the young Disclosure artists appeared to make some White Noise. The young talented artists played a variety of instruments shuffling between the bass guitar, the keyboard and the synth drums bringing all the British electronic style with their particular garage-tipped dance music. Highlight moments of the night were when we heard some of their biggest goldies like Bang That, Superego or When a Fire Start to Burn plus the majority of tracks from their album 'Settle', which kept the crowd going strong for an hour and a half. It is a pleasure to see these two brothers in a live performance, an everybody could notice their connection on the stage. Then one of them is singing, the other is playing drums, when one of them is mixing tracks, the other one is playing guitar… the variety of percussion they selected proved that Disclosure is a band to enjoy on the dancefloor. They've already proven themselves as producers with their past album, but the ability to rouse all the attendees (a fact you could realize seeing their faces) is what makes them so talented, and may be the reason for their fast success.
But unfortunately for all of you, readers, it was their only live performance in Ibiza during this season. The duo is going to spend the rest of the summer filling the biggest stages of the heavyweight electronic music spots beyond the Balearics... in the meantime, that was quite the send off.
WORDS | Natalia Gutiérrez PHOTOGRAPHY | James Chapman
