September 1st was the big one… the most eagerly awaited gig on Ibiza for 19 years, according to Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe.

That last occasion (we worked it out) must have been when Freddy Mercury and Monserrat Caballe unveiled the theme song for the Barcelona Olympics at Ku in 1987. Sadly Freddy died before the Olympics in 1992 so the song was never performed live at the opening ceremony. It still makes it a big gig though.

Despite the history, times and tastes change, so we’ve heard dissension from ardent fans of Faithless who paid that same accolade to the last MTV extravaganza on the island at the same venue, although by then known as Privilege.

Nonetheless tonight’s was a big gig – as at Kasabian there were several hundred people outside the venue either prepared to make do with the sound and no sight of their heroes, or to pay for one of the tickets, which were allegedly changing hands for 2.500€.

The support band, Reverend and The Makers, certainly got the audience going, at least imploring them to love each other and be nice.

Zane Lowe then stepped up to deal with the set changeover and roused the crowd still further while the security held up signs informing us all that ‘Anyone caught throwing their drink in the air would be escorted from the premises’. Meanwhile we were advised that no photographs of the band were to be taken, because the Arctics like to personally control all pictorial evidence of their antics…

This might have worked twenty years ago, before the invention of camera phones, but became farcical as they descended the stairs to the stage in a blaze of flashes from the accumulated paying punters. There followed a succession of their greatest hits, but no banter with the audience. No empathy, just lots of hit songs for the audience to sing along to.

It may just be that the Arctics are too big nowadays to enjoy performing at an intimate gig designed for bonding with their audience, like Ibiza Rocks… You can maybe see though how perfoming to 50,000 people 2 nights running might make you forget what you used to do….

Technically, the sound was really good, the world and his wife turned up, but sorry – we like bands with a bit more passion…

It’s a real shame because *every* ibiza rocks gig so far has been fun and full of feeling – tonight that was lost

So roll on the fratellis – shame that it seems that one of the dates was cancelled

Mike (Manumission) & Lenny last night

On a plus side we ran into Lenny twice in a week – if you dont know Lenny but like pure original Ibiza chill out – then you wont go far wrong with his music. He also co-founded the DJ Awards and we are hoping that Ibiza Rocks gets recognised in the 10th anniversary DJ awards at Pacha at the end of the month.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 at 2:27 am and is filed under arctic monkeys, ibiza, ibiza rocks, live music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.