Club review: Sankeys Ibiza opening party, part 2

Approximately eighteen hours had passed since the first Sankeys opening party had ended, and now we found ourselves in a taxi heading back to Playa d’en Bossa for the second round.

It was a rather different line-up tonight. While the first mostly concentrated on tech and deep house, the second, more eclectic line-up consisted of more of a mash-up of DJs including Mosca, Joy Orbison, Adam Shelton and heavyweights Basement Jaxx and Booka Shade both performing DJ sets.

Arriving around midnight, a similar time to the night before, Sankeys was noticeably less busy; maybe some clubbers were still recovering. We pressed on however, as Bones kicked things off in The Basement. He started off playing trippy, minimal techno which got us straight back into party mode. As his set progressed, he started playing around with tempos unnecessarily, quickly speeding up and slowing down tracks which put us off a bit. In general he was playing good tunes.

After Bones finished, Basement Jaxx began. I expected them to come on in the main room, The Box, but maybe it wasn’t busy enough so they put them on in The Basement. They started off quite good; the music was fun and had a carnival feel to it, which was great to dance to. Unfortunately this didn’t last long, and their set went downhill from there. They were looping vocals out of time over tunes which didn’t really go well together and the track selection was quite poor, mash-ups of electro and even dubstep at times, which the crowd didn’t really seem to appreciate. We held out for a while but gave up as it didn’t sound like it was getting any better, so we headed into Spektrum, hosted by Departure.

Oliver Drops was first on, mixing up a lovely selection of tech house which gave a great alternative to Basement Jaxx. The lighting in Spektrum is calm and cool to begin with, a light blue mist floating round the dancefloor, with the same LED lighting on the roof as from Spektrum back at their home in Manchester. Drops performed a lovely warm up for the headliner, Adam Shelton, who came on shortly after.

Back into the Basement where Basement Jaxx were still going, this was their last tune and they dragged it out for a good ten minutes. It even seemed like they looped it back to the start once it finished. Booka Shade were stood behind them, all the while checking their watches, eager to begin after waiting almost an hour since they were meant to. Finally Basement Jaxx took off and Booka Shade came on.

It was amazing, from start to finish. Having only ever seen Booka Shade perform live, it was refreshing to see just how good they were at DJing. Performing possibly one of the best DJ sets we had ever seen, Booka Shade played an array of minimal techno, stomping tech house tunes such as Popof’s remix of Maetrik’s ‘Push Me’ and a whole selection of fresh, new remixes of their own productions, like ‘Body Language’ and ‘Charlotte’ to name but a few. The crowd were hysterical and everybody was in their element; they had waited patiently all night for the main stars of the show.

We didn’t leave the packed Basement once throughout the set, as Booka Shade ploughed us with feelings of euphoria, excitement and pure happiness for a good two hours. Unfortunately, these episodes don’t last forever, and after around two hours Booka Shade finished and took a bow to the crowd who were going wild with appreciation.

It had been a strange sort of night - overall quite fun, but it seemed most clubbers had ventured out for the first opening and not quite made it to the second, so it wasn’t as busy as it could have been. Booka Shade had been unbelievable - and anyone who didn't make it out for the second night definitely missed out.

Time to make way to the beach and watch the sunrise…

Words: Jack Law

Read more club reviews

See all Ibiza news

Buy tickets for Ibiza club nights

Tickets are no longer available for this event