Well known in the UK, DJ DES PAUL will be hosting this years DJ Awards, alongside a gathering of the world’s top DJ’s. His co-host will be Mariana Ribeiro, a Brasilian artist and dancer known to the public in Ibiza thanks to her performances at Manumission and Pacha.

Des Paul is best known as the DJ on Capital 95.8FM every weekend. He has been involved in the music industry for over 10 years mainly in broadcast and is an award winning presenter who works also for MTV Networks UK.

The ceremony will feature many internationally renowned DJs with two live performances during the night: the first from RON CARROLL, American singer, songwriter and producer that has worked with the most established artists in the house music industry, the second is from FRAGMA a German producer and singer famous for her song ‘Toca’s Miracle’.
The DJ Awards pre-party and ceremony will be broadcast live via different radio stations nationwide and internationally – check www.djawards.com for further details to listen live to the event.

Ibiza Sonica Radio will be the official broadcaster at the press cocktail party at Ocean Drive Hotel from 8pm till 10pm.
Ibiza Global Radio will broadcast live from Pacha from midnight till the end of the ceremony.

See you there..

Thats what it said on the tin…

In actualité it meant that Xico Tarres (President of the Island Council), Mrs Meg Munn (British Secretary of State for Consular Affairs), Denise Holt (British Ambassador to Spain) and Helen Watson (British Consul) had a “do” down at the existing British Consul and unveiled a plaque to commemorate the day. Security was tight and there were no riff raff – but we got in and we did spot an island couple who were probably trying to bend the ear of Xico…

Andy, I put a shirt on for the first time this year – you could’ve

After the typical english muck up of the pulling of the curtain of the plaque went wrong there was a q and a with the local press. Both Mrs Munn and Mr Tarres went to great lengths to emphasise how important british tourists are to the island.

We have to review the recording of it but the penultimate question didn’t seem to go down that well but being british we wouldn’t let the press conference end on a downer so I asked Xico Tarres about Winter Tourism and whether they would be working with the consul for the UK market.

Here’s the audio of the question and answer: click here
To paraphrase:
“We are expanding on the spanish scheme that subsidises spanish pensioners to come to ibiza in the winter and will be expanding it so the english, french, german and italian pensioners will be coming over in winter 2009″

so thats the islands answer to winter tourism…

Fair play to Mrs Munn, she arrived last night after a 4 hour plane delay, went to san an’s west end and then went to amnesia….

Click on images for larger versions

Xico Tarres, Meg Munn, Denise Holt	Meg Munn unveils the plaque

Xico Tarres, Meg Munn and Helen Watson	let’s have some cava…

The inauguration of the new British Consulate takes place tomorrow morning.

Along with the British Ambassador to Spain, Denise Holt (pictured) will be The British Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, Mrs Meg Munn, British Consul Helen Watson and the President of the Island Council Xico Torres.

We’ve been invited so we’ll pop along and have a look and ask a few questions about promoting winter tourism to the UK…

08/06/07: new british ambassador to spain visits ibiza

According to a reliable source today, DC10 are on the verge of getting a licence for a 1000 person capacity…

September 13th was a very important day for football on Ibiza. It was the first time that two island teams had contested a game in Second Division B of the Spanish League. Football on Ibiza really is coming home in leaps and bounds, corners and goal scoring opportunities.

Almost as if by arrangement the game was preceded by a titanic struggle in English Premier League football – Liverpool v. Man Utd – in front of a capacity Anfield crowd of some 45,000 people. More like a Europen cup tie than an early season local derby, Liverpool triumphed in front of their home crowd, despite going a goal behind, and went to the top of the Premier League.

Was this to be prophetic? Could Santa Eulalia’s Peña Deportiva beat their rivals from ten kilometers down the road and leap above them in only their first season in the dizzy heights of Division 2 B. Starting the game on equal points, a win would leave them just 31 places shy of Barcelona and Real Madrid in the Spanish football hierarchy.

Parking was difficult, as it should be for a local derby of this stature, so on the long walk to the stadium the roar of the crowd made it clear that we’d missed kick off, but also served to quicken the pulse in expectation of this gladiatorial contest.

The attendance was a little lower than that at Anfield, for the simple reason that there is but a single stand, the main stand, at the Peña Deportiva stadium. This had been radically extended for today’s fixture and was equally divided between the Peña and Eivissa fans, as became clear when the ball finally found the back of the net.

However, the up-side of a single stand is that when there’s a stoppage in play you can enjoy a view of the sea on the horizon. This was particularly true when half time arrived and we still hadn’t found the scoreboard. Having arrived late this was a problem, but with the attendance apparently touching 1,500 we didn’t want to trouble any of the heavily outnumbered policemen, as you might if you were lost or didn’t know the time – instead we decided to assume that it was scoreless at that point and contented ourselves with admiring the thoughtfully arranged full moon rising out of the distant sea, whilst we waited for the second half to start.

The first half had gone the way of the home team, but without a breakthrough. This arrived after ten minutes of the second half when a carelessly conceded free kick resulted in an off the ball incident in the box for which the referee awarded a fairly generous penalty. Tino confidently put Santa Eulalia ahead when he sent the goally the wrong way with his spot kick. Half of the crowd went ballistic as the pitch succumbed to shade before the setting sun.

It remained a fairly evenly balanced contest for the next twenty minutes until a sweet move split the Eivissa defence allowing Heredia through to score a fine second goal for the home team. Ten minutes to go and the home team were both looking good and growing in confidence.

Meanwhile the ten local policemen, clearly worried by their largest challenge yet, turned their attention from the match and towards crowd control. Half of the ecstatic crowd had got the result they wanted and for the accountants at Peña Deportiva it was probably the biggest take on the gate they’d ever seen.

Nearly time to bring on Inter Milan and the rest…

In the meantime local bragging rights remain with the smaller town till the re-match in January.

Click on images for larger versions

	Half time and its burger and beer time

Tino takes the penalty	The score… 1-0 to Santa Eulalia

Heredia blasts down the wing and shoots – score:. 2-0 to Santa Eulalia

Santa Eulalia continue to attack	Game over

It’s the final XBox weekender this weekend. At the Ibiza Rocks hotel will be Radio 1′s Zane Lowe with an exclusive DJ set.

On Saturday night though the Mystery Jets will be playing – also over the weekend will be comedy genius Mike Cuban performing as his hospital radio alter-ego DJ Barry Peters. Completeing the lineup are those moustachiod rockers the Cuban Brothers. Expect great tunes, a great laugh and pool parties.

Finally, partygoers at the Ibiza Rocks Hotel will be treated to the talents of rising star and cutting edge DJ, Doorly. Utilising five decks and a mountain of effects units, expect an eclectic mix of tuneage spanning everything from house and electro through to indie and hip hop to keep the party pumping regardless of genre.

Tonights ibiza sunset video:

Music is from Lenny Ibizarre from his new double album called “Selected Sessions” – Which you can buy from our online store here: www.ishopibiza.com. This is from the chill cd.

Click on the images for larger versions

Despite the absence of horses, the dust was definitely kicked up again at Sant Rafael’s Hippodrome on Tuesday September 9th, during Ibiza Rocks‘ last gig of the season with Pendulum.

As the “soon to be huge” Iglu & Hartley took to the stage, a feeling of dismay fell upon us as we realized that this would probably be the last chance to enjoy a decent outdoor concert event in Ibiza until next summer.

However, my dismay was soon to be replaced by laughter as the “best friend of the band” confidently informed me that Iglu and Hartley would be the first band to play on the moon. It later became apparent that they weren’t planning to take him with them, because I ended up with the honour of driving my new found mate home.

The second band’s hometown was none other than Manchester, so it wasn’t surprising that the crowd, dominated by Brits, made quite a fuss over them. It has to be said that The Whip’s mixture of electronica and rock was quite unique, if not complete genius. Definitely my personal favourite of the night.

However, the four stars didn’t manage to generate quite as much commotion as the main act of the night, although I did observe a dozen or so grooving grannies raving at their own pace throughout their show.

At this point it was about dinner time (in Spain, of course) and I was disappointed to find that my choice was between a burger, and well, another burger. It was quite a chore to get the six euro chunk of meat down my throat and I was aware of what felt like a rock in my belly for the rest of the night. Thank goodness the “free hierbas chupito girl” spotted me and helped to ease my digestion.

I was quickly distracted from my ailment when the long awaited Pendulum entered the spotlight. As the three original band members (Rob, Paul and Gareth) all aussies, hit the stage, it seemed that just about the entire Hippodrome flooded into the mosh pit.

Like flies to a lightbulb, everyone seemed to have the same goal in life, namely, to be as close to the stage as possible. “Verse”, the bands MC, proved to be quite a crowd motivator.

The longer he dominated the mic, the more unidentifiable objects seemed to be tossed through the air.

This is not entirely surprising because their first album, “Hold Your Colour”, is one of the best selling drum and bass albums of all time.

Another interesting fact is that their second single, “Slam”, is the theme song of the playstation 3 game “Motostorm”, which perhaps explained all the pre-pubescent boys running around in the audience. The band are now based in london so we should be hearing a lot more from them.

As the night came to an end and the still raving stampede headed for the coaches which would take them to the legendery “Bar M”, where resident DJ Aoki and Dj Doorly were set to play, I tried to snoop out any fixed dates for next year’s opening party. But as per usual with Ibiza Rocks… no chance!

So, ladies and gentlemen, patience is a virtue – we will keep our ears open no doubt, but until then you can visit www.ibizarocks.com to find out more about this Friday’s Xbox Weekender and the forthcoming Beachbombing event. See you next year!

By Pia Walter

One of the most popular words in the Spanish language is ‘manaña’ – meaning tomorrow. It’s generally used in conjunction with work that has to be done and normally refers to Spanish people, but this year it has been hopefully applied to foreigners – and specifically tourists.

The Spanish themselves are not prone to panic, but when May, June and then July proved to be quiet months many of the foreigners running businesses on Ibiza began to lose their cool and depress the few tourists who did darken their doorways with tales of despair and despondency.

Spanish business owners on the other hand, with the benefit of decades of profitable summers under their belts and in the bank, said “make the most of the peace and quiet, they’ll all come at the same time – in August!”

True enough as it turned out – almost overnight vast expanses of sand turned into vast expanses of sunburned flesh. Despite this many of the foreign business owners continued to moan, claiming that the majority of the tourists were Italian and weren’t interested in their Full English Breakfast offering, or even 2 pints for the price of one!

No complaints, however, were heard from the ever-growing band of Italian business proprietors. It appears that Ibiza is becoming an overflow facility for Formentera, which is widely acknowledged as being temporarily annexed to Italy for the month of August.

Those who live in Formentera have long been aware of this fact and most nowadays have sufficient grasp of Italian to relieve their boisterous visitors of their euros with a smile. They also know from experience that as soon as August ends the other nationalities will return until the end of the season.

The other particularly numerous visitors to Ibiza in August are the flamingos of Salinas, however, they are completely ignored in the official figures as they don’t carry money.

Yet another thing for local business owners to moan about…