Insane @ Pacha Review

Image: Pacha Ibiza

This season saw the departure of some of Pacha's biggest nights from the club, including All Gone Pete Tong, Luciano's Vagabundos, and Defected In The House. In response to this, a range of exciting parties were added to the club's roster such as Solomun + 1, Guy Gerber's Wisdom Of The Glove and in-house night Insane. The latter has seen some great line ups over the summer, and when DJ Sneak, Derrick Carter and Mark Farina got together for their third back to back special of the season, we felt it was about high time we checked Insane out for ourselves.

We arrived to find the trio of house gangsters already mixing up a storm in the packed main room. Classic acapellas like Deee Lite's 'Groove Is In The Heart' were strung over a range of old and new jacking house originals and remixes such as that of Blaze's 'Most Precious Love'. They each took turns to man the CDJs, bopping away coolly to stumpy trumpets, weaving old school beats like House Master Boyz's 'House Nation' in and out of each other – it was an injection of straight up house music, a somewhat refreshing change from the regular bombardments of a more techno flavour that is often received on the island. As the impressive back to back to back set came to an end to the sounds of Incognito's 'Always There' (above), we left the ambient colours of the main room to begin an exploration of the mazy club that is Pacha.

Cool, deep techno oozed out of the rather empty second room. After a quick pit stop in the raised seating area on some comfy sofas, we moved on. There must have been around ten to fifteen rooms throughout the whole building, enough to spend quite some time figuring it all out. We made it to a terrace over-looking the main room to find Joris Voorn smashing through his signature sound of tech house with his own huge hit 'Sweep The Floor' and old favourites like Armand Van Helden's remix of Tori Amos' 'Professional Widow'. As we danced on the roomy terrace to the smell of tea trea oil wafting over us, it was clear then to say that Pacha certainly pay attention to detail.

We then discovered the almost hidden Funky Room at the back of the terrace and up another flight of stairs – it was the icing on the cake. A pair of proud vinyl masters worked through their collection of fantastic, feel good funk and soul like The Doobie Brother's 'Long Train Runnin' (below), and from then on the Funky Room became a regular pit-stop for a quick jive. A further look around and plenty of comfy sofa sit-downs later, we made it back to the main room to catch the rest of Joris.

The crowd were loving it, which was evident by the sea of hands that was so strongly waving through the air. This was no surprise based on Voorn's tune selection and he continued to keep the crowd fully entertained with bangers like Julian Perez's 'Night Train' before wrapping up an astounding set with a version of Ultra Nate's 'Free', causing a sing along from all in the crowd and bringing a sense of unity to the room.

All of the DJ's had been on top form and the club itself had proved to be very interesting. The sound system could be improved but that shouldn't be too difficult for Pacha, providing that they notice the problem. DJ Sneak, Carter and Farina should have been given a longer slot as well; two hours isn't enough for three DJ's of such prowess. Insane, however, was certainly a top night; catch the house gangsters back for their final performance of the season as a trio at the Insane closing on 4^th October, alongside residents John Digweed and Fritz Kalkbrenner.