Many of you know the story: in 2000 Sven Vath and the founding members of the Cocoon team (most of whom are still working for the party today) brought techno for the first time to an island that worshipped house and trance. They played on Monday nights, rivalling the reigning party of the day, Manumission, next door at Privilege, and went on to become one of the biggest nights on the island, launching the Ibiza careers of DJs like Luciano, Richie Hawtin, Marco Carola and Loco Dice - all of whom branched out to be the top dog at their own parties in recent years. Solid techno ventures all, but the atmosphere I've experienced at Cocoon has yet to be matched and, as the catalyst and leader of this atmosphere, Sven Väth is peerless.
Fifteen years after Sven freaked the Amnesia staff out by surprising them at work with pounding, minimal techno, so alien to Ibiza at the time, I arrived at Cocoon closing, with complete faith that this would be one of the best of the lot, joined by a very full club of people who shared the faith. Henrik Schwarz played to a heaving terrace and had definitely caught the closing party bug, the second half of his set packed with monster tracks, bigger and brasher (in a good way) than I expected from the one of the Innervisions crew but entirely welcome. Texts flew back and forth and our dancefloor group slowly began to grow, as all the friendly faces we'd been dancing with over the season drew together…
“Terrace, two metres back from second speaker on left, near stairs, 35 degree angle from centre podium, near tall guy with backwards cap, waving phone in the air, lighting flares, latitude and longitude of…” and so it went. We were a decent group by the time Sven Väth arrived after 4am, ready to begin the twenty-hour marathon that is his annual closing set. For the first time he closed the season in the terrace - and how.
No time for warm-ups in a twenty hour set it would seem – Sven had a whole year of his favourite new music plus a few classics from the last fifteen to share with us and he wasn't going to waste time with ‘in-between' tracks. So, so many tunes were gold dust in vinyl form – two punchy productions from Alan Fitzpatrick with his remix of I Want You by Trus'me and original track Truant, the retro sounding Don't Wanna Lose Ya Love by Elbee Bad, the absolute monster of a techno track Jack7 by MMM… and a whole lot of other brilliant tracks I didn't write down because I was having a bloody good rave. Around 7am I tore myself away from the terrace to check out Adam Beyer in the main room, who was casually downing a glass of champagne as I entered, whilst playing some not-so-casual techno in the form of friend and colleague Joel Mull's The Waiting. It was Beyer at his banging best by this point, and I don't think many others could have held the main room crowd for so long against the magnetism of Väth and the terrace. I stomped for the best part of an hour then guiltily darted back next door – it's hard to choose sometimes!
I'd been hovering somewhere in the middle of the terrace for most of the night but as daylight broke above our heads I was drawn to the front of the room like a fat kid to 20-pack mars bars on special. Repositioning myself a few metres in front of Väth, I was now in prime position to catch the many and varied expressions and gestures of Sven ‘in the moment'. I'm a firm believer in dancing to your mates on the floor, not the DJ booth, but it makes such a difference to the party if you can look over and see the DJ busting out a fist pump and bass face just like you. Sven Vath's abundant charisma is the one of the important factors that gives Cocoon its edge above the rest.
As always, good things come to those who keep dancing past breakfast, so the ancient Chinese proverb goes, and the final hour around 10am really packed in the Cocoon “hits”. I was stoked to hear DJ Yellow & Flowers and Sea Creatures No One Gets Left Behind - one of my dreamy favourites from last year, Epikur by David August, a contender for tune of the season, Hotel Lauer – QD, U Turn by Fur Coat and of course Koze's remix of Moderat Bad Kingdom, a very popular track within the walls of Cocoon this season.
Sven closed with the mother of all curve balls, Tsekeleke by Nozinja. The electric salsa style track didn't have a pounding 4/4 to work off and that spun a lot of people out who didn't know how to incorporate a fist pump into this new and terrifying style of music, but the rest of us bopped around awkwardly and joyously to the strange but cheerful track!
Out the doors, braved the taxi queue, then it was back to one's respective homes, hotels and bars for a shower, a bit of grub and a cup of tea (yeah, we party like rockstars) before heading to Destino for the afters feeling fresh as that potato hiding in the back of my cupboard that's squishy and started sprouting but I can't throw it out ‘cause I've become strangely attached and fascinated by its growth.
So we were pretty haggard, but nothing was going to stop us getting to the last opportunity to party with Sven in Ibiza. It was worth the struggle; let's just say he held back more than a few special records for the occasion and, as you'd expect from an afters, the selection was even more diverse and creative than at Amnesia. I think there were around two hours where literally (and I mean this in the old fashioned, actually literal sense) every tune was worth a grizzly bass face, excited grin at the nearest friend or flappy arm wave accompanied by a whoop. Tired though I was, I'd say the afters were even better than the excellent closing, proving for the zillionth time that Sven Vath and Cocoon, like wine or Keith Richards, only gets better with age.
Aahh bugs. I miss Cocoon already.
WORDS | Jordan Smith PHOTOGRAPHY | Phrank.net + Destino
