- The Paradise lineup on Wednesday, August 17th almost perfectly illustrated the party's current MO. On the Terrace at DC-10 you had Cassy, Rodriguez Jr. and Joseph Capriati, three European acts with fanbases that stretch across the continent. The Main Room, meanwhile, was geared heavily towards a British audience, with headline slots for Skream and Hot Since 82. What started out five years ago as a party full of young Brits, due to the undying popularity of Welsh figurehead Jamie Jones, has grown into a more mixed affair, with Spaniards and Italians rubbing shoulders with kids from London, Manchester and Leeds.
This is truer than ever in 2016, which has a lot to do with Joseph Capriati. In what was one of the biggest stories of the summer, the Neapolitan DJ traded Marco Carola's Music On, the party that nurtured his newfound success, for Paradise, signing on for seven dates. Several of those, including the night I was there, were billed as back-to-backs with Jones. From a musical standpoint, they're an odd pairing: Jones is a colourful house DJ with a penchant for big hooks, while Capriati prefers a more direct techno and tech house sound. Without hearing them play, it was hard to imagine how their styles would gel. But then the music was likely only part of it: Capriati has a huge following in Ibiza, especially among Italians, so locking him down was, if nothing else, a canny bit of business.
Or was it? Rumour has it that this season Paradise hasn't been hitting the dizzying heights of previous years, with the growth of Amnesia rival HYTE taking its toll. I got to Paradise around 12:30 AM on Thursday morning, and for the first hour or so there was a lot more space than I expected. But then, just as Cassy was hitting her stride, the Terrace swelled to maximum capacity, turning every dash for the bar or toilet into a minor ordeal. Cassy's final 30 minutes were her best; at one point, she dropped a dry, rolling drum track followed by a flamboyant banger, as if to accentuate her own send-off. The crowd responded loudly for that one, though on the whole they'd seemed a little disinterested.
But that's what Ibiza's like: audiences, generally speaking, save their energy for the headline act. As soon as Jones and Capriati hit the decks, the atmosphere completely changed. Their first track was huge, building from an extended drum roll into the first of countless snaking basslines, each seemingly thicker than the last. Thousands of arms shot up during the breakdowns, followed closely by a chorus of whoops and hollers when the kicks hit. It was hard to tell who was playing what from the dance floor, but there were definite contrasts in the music. Vibrant vocal cuts with big personalities would fade into loopy, groove-driven tech house. In truth, I'd have preferred to see Jones on his own, but I'm not sure many in the room would have felt the same.
Photo credit /
Tasya Menaker