There is nowhere like Ibiza anywhere in the world. It’s magical. The moment you step off the plane and smell the sweet of the pine trees, you know you are in clubbing paradise. I first went in the mid 80s with my college friends, didn’t have a clue what was going over the hill at Amnesia and Ku where Acid House was raging or at the infamous Pikes Hotel where George Michael and Freddie Mercury were partying by the pool. Instead, I got drunk at The Star Bar in San Antonio, had drunken sex on the beach with a girl called Naomi and generally was a pissed up tourist. My dad had started a company called ‘Nitelife’ – basically a company where kids would stay at hotels in various Mediterranean, Miami and Russian hotels with famous funk and soul stars – party with them, have a drink with them at the hotel bar and then dance watching them on stage wherever the artist had been booked to play. My week coincided with Edwin Starr in Ibiza. Lovely guy, wouldn’t have liked to have been stuck in a lift with him though. So whilst I shook my stuff to ‘War’, Alfredo was turning up the heat at open air venues over the San Raphael hill to clubbers on Ecstasy. It wasn’t until a few years later when Nicky Holloway asked me to come out and cover his quarry party for my magazine Mixmag that I ‘got it’. The party was in the same location up the San Antonio hills in Sa Pedrera where MTV would later throw one of the best parties Ibiza has ever witnessed with the likes of Chicane, Frankie Knuckles, Paul Oakenfold, David Morales, Erick Morillo, Alex P., Jose Padilla, Seb Fontaine and Bob Sinclar. However, this was seven years before that, 1992 and Nicky had the likes of 808 State and Sasha on the bill. Proper rave days. It was amazing, dancing until sunrise, the sun coming up sending incredible rays onto the quarry walls and everyone just hugging each other. Nicky lost £40,000 that night as his partner did the off with the cash. He had to fly home and declare himself bankrupt. That’s Ibiza – one minute you are flying high as a kite, the next you are lying in the gutter. So what have been my highlights? The first sunset I ever witnessed at Cafe Del Mar, my first time dancing at Space when it had no roof – diving off the wooden jetty into the turquoise sea at the Salinas Beach, slurping my first ever glass of Hierbas, lunching on the Terrace at The Hacienda Hotel 3000 feet above the sea, witnessing the smoke cannons exploding onto the Amnesia main room dancefloor, Alex and Brandon just sending the Space Terrace bonkers at Space back in the day, Basement Jaxx doing the same present day, DJ Gee’s unbelievable all day parties on Bora Bora beach, seeing one of the island’s worker’s sitting in an inflatable dinghy at uber-cool Pacha at a Sundissential hard house night – the same night that as we drove back to the villa on a San Jose hillside top when we nearly drove over a body on a dusty road which turned out to be the Sundissential promoter Madders completely off his head and unconscious, the bloke the following year back at my villa who walked straight through a plate glass window nearly severing his arm and having to get airlifted by helicopter to a hospital on the mainland, Paul Van Dyk at Cream every year – just superb, having model Jordan staying in my bedroom at the Coastline Apartments – then having to clear up her Tampon tubes out of the bin the next day, paying a Queen’s ransom for an armed guard to escort Victoria Beckham to get from her £20,000 a night villa to the airport I’d rented for her so she could do a PA for one of my club nights, seeing a certain balding Radio 1 DJ at a lap dancing club – if only his long term girlfriend knew, descending down the steps into Manumission staff rooms and witnessing Mike and Claire in full flow with someone filming them, having my first meal on the rooftop of L’Elephant, writing off seven hire cars in one week which included one rolling into the sea after I’d left the handbrake off, looking on in bewilderment poolside as Fatboy Slim and Zoe Ball got it on, partying on a multi million pound yacht then realising it was American clothing designer’s Tommy Hilfiger, being invited to dinner at the lovely Khaled who owns El Divino and walking into his living room to be surrounded by 20 prostitutes, Morillo at Pacha every time, Darren Emerson’s after party at the best villa on the island complete with waterfall when I had to get a lift home in the back of his gardener’s van, getting mugged and ending up hospital having stitches put in my head, dining at the restaurant overlooking the giant Es Vedra island – one of the world’s most magnetic points, seeing Boy George buy every lobster at a beachside restaurant and letting them swim out to sea – then leaving and the waiters wading into the sea to retrieve them, coming out of Manumission at silly o’clock and getting into your car and driving home – then as you pull into your drive a big bag of money rolls from under your seat – miraculously I’d got in the wrong car which was the same make and colour and my key fit the lock – that was a nice few free night’s out on whoever’s car it was, the Manumission Motel – dwarves on the door, naked girls walking around the bar, DJ Kris Needs’ bedroom looking like a pig sty – but the only place I could find to shag my girlfriend – that place was so wrong it was right. Renaissance at Pacha – that’s how to throw a party – hat’s off to you Mr and Mrs Oakes and now manager of the club Danny Whittle. The Es Vive 24 hour bar – thank the lord, pulling up to the white sands of Formentera which is always such a breathtaking moment. Sitting upstairs in the VIP area of Privilege surveying 12,000 people go apeshit at the world’s biggest club with thousands dancing around a swimming pool, The Base Bar in Ibiza Town – the dude on the door – thanks for everything dude!
