A hot half decade - the best parties in Ibiza from 1999 – 2004

The amount of shit ravers talk is incredible. We babble on about how totally tallulahed we were and how we heard all the best djs. Mostly however, we’re right. If it felt good, it was good. The bits we can remember anyway.

1999

This was the year Ibiza became global cultural currency, due in part to the endlessly echoed dirty deeds of the stars of Sky’s Ibiza Uncovered series. It was odd that unstylish debauchery became synonymous with the White Isle as live sex shows plus the West End of San An does not a scene make. However both styles of entertainment pulled in the punters in ’99.

Darren Hughes made his high concept home at Space by programming an eye-catchingly expensive line up on a weekly basis, thereby cementing that club's status as a blue chip mainstream brand.

At the end of the year Manumission and Space together ushered in the new Millennium as eye-rolling ravers emerged blinking into a new, more commercial, era. Could anything remain underground for long in the age of instant communication via the internet and mobile phones?

Circo Loco @ D-D-D-Dc10 was the kind of party that made your head rattle. Free in all senses of the word, it somehow managed to be intimate yet out of this world at the same time.

Also intense but more gay was La Troya Asesina at Amnesia. Their sexed-up shenanigans pounded through till at least 10am every Thursday morning. If the sign of a good party is the number of cars parked in ditches outside then La Troya was the best.

MTV strafed the island with a repeat performance of their outdoor hit from the year before, thus enraging the owners of roofed venues.

This was biggest year ever for the English-speaking media contingent. San Antonio during Radio One weekend was one big traffic jam. The hype from the magazines and web companies awash with cash was overwhelming. Then some really pissed off guys flew planes right into the Twin Towers, the heart of world capitalism, and investors the world over freaked. The party was by no means over, but the majority of club paparazzi got laid off. Cue a thousand 'dance is dead' articles by redundant journalists looking to write themselves onto a new bandwagon.

Danny Tenaglia owned 2002. House music’s pervy old uncle performed the unprecedented feat of packing out the big four – Space, Amnesia, Pacha, Privilege.

Also ravenously popular but at the opposite end of the pay scale were the Gar-la-la-lands lot from Liverpool who continued Ibiza's fine pirate tradition re: financing.

Manumission have a rep for persistent perversion. Which perhaps explains why they decided to book the most party hard, musically avant garde lineup the island has ever seen. Tim Sheridan was the dj glue that help such a diverse lineup of acts from the Rapture to Har Mar Superstar stick in the minds of hip tourists and devoted regulars alike.

David Guetta's Fuck Me I'm Famous had been well received for years, but after the blanket coverage of his 'Just A Little More Love' ditty, you needed a tunnel to get into his Friday night collaboration with Pete Tong's Pure Pacha.

Less musically obvious but suffering from a similar competition for guest list places was Sven Vath's Cocoon at Amnesia. Techno for girls, but in a good way.

Space's two new zones helped entice back all the scenesters put off by the crush on the terrace. Every day there were good parties - Matinee, We Love, La Comunidad, La Troya afterhours and the Manumission Carry On were the picks of the bunch.

- The Cocoon backlash will begin, and something later on a Tuesday will takes its place as the connected groover's gig of choce.

- The clubbing world will be underwhelmed by the Space refit and everybody will just get on with it.

- Disco for dummies, AKA funky house, will refuse to die the death it so richly deserves.

- Productions will get more lavish as the big players seek to justify their high ticket prices. But as always the money will follow the best music, which will probably be played on some tiny island off the coast only accessible by a leaky dinghy piloted by an oversexed hippy and his one-eyed dog.