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Manumission - the biggest night at the biggest club in the world. 10,000 people packed on a dance floor together with showgirls, musclemen, acrobats and a giant cake. The scene truly is set for a special night. Constantly evolving, alongside the crem de la crem that house and trance has to offer, the club this year has launched Ibiza Rocks giving a platform for guitar-based talent to strut their stuff. Tonight it’s the turn of Hot Hot Heat along with up and coming Indica – a band onstage at 6am that Gigwise has duly changed our flight time home in order to catch, they better be worth it.
First up it’s the inimitable Fischerspooner donning the main room. Intrinsically creative, excessively camp, with costumes straight out of Julius Caesar’s wardrobe, the whole performance art aspect of their show is lost on most of the audience. Still, there’s something that feels right about Fischerspooner being on stage here - Privilege is perhaps the most suited venue in the world to host them as they’re larger than life, colourful and in your face. Nothing about this band is understated. Just before Casey Spooner’s eye make-up overwhelms us, we escape to the Music Box hosting Ibiza Rocks.
Before tonight it was an interesting prospect to see how Hot Hot Heat fare with the Ibiza crowd. The raw and sometimes throw-away pop of their debut album, ‘Make up The Breakdown’, had won them a legion of fans but they’d failed to mature or cover new ground with their latest release, ‘Elevator’. Compared to Friday (when Hard-Fi stole the show), the room is positively empty. The phrase ‘you could swing a cat in here’ springs to mind.
They open with ‘Talk to Me, Dance With Me’ with its unfathomable lyrics, wild-eyed poses and quirky beats soon getting those who have ventured into the room moving, and even more poking an inquisitive head round the door. Thankfully, it starts to get busier, and by the time they reach ‘Bandages’, there’s a decent enough crowd spinning round to the music. Then, they lose their keyboards and guitar within a few seconds of each other, any momentum is lost. An impromptu drum duet and extended bass solo does little to placate the audience during the 6 minute outage. Steve Hays tries his best to improvise – “na, na, na”ing the keyboard bits for ‘Get In, Or Get Out’ when they eventually get the guitar working, but it’s an uphill struggle to win us back. Top marks for the smiles and effort in the face of adversity - Christ even the cynics gave them a well-deserved cheer at the end of their set.
A four piece rock outfit, loud, uncompromising and full of youthful energy, Indica make it on 20 minutes after the planned stage time of 6am. They play a short, tight set, each song solid in composition, full of addictive riffs and layered with infectious melodies. Delivered with a charisma beyond their years, whatever they end up calling themselves, in a just world they’re going to be stars.
Ibiza Rocks may not be known as a groundbreaking live-series, yet, but their willingness to showcase this sort of talent proves it has its heart in the right place. There are the die-hards who claim that rock should be kept off the island and who try to keep Ibiza as the last sanctuary of pure dance, but as Andy McKay, Manumission’s co-founder explains “Ibiza needs to open its arms to a wider spectrum of people”. His vision is quickly becoming a reality, and it would be no surprise if Ibiza Rocks becomes a staple on the list of must-play Euro-festivals within the next few years. Ibiza does rock. And there’s still time to book to see those pesky Kaiser Chiefs next month…
