Being put up at the stylish clubbers' hotel, Ushuaïa, for your disco dot-to-dot White Isle rampage must be pretty full-on. Daily early evening start parties taking you through to midnight with happy-as-larry crews descending on ground level to join you for the action must be a total nightmare. Yeah right. Last night the party pile-up had its mettle divided across Ushuaïa's back, front and sides for young Dutch legend Martin Garrix under his residency suit, Multiply.
Five is Garrix's magic number with him joined by fellow Dutchmen Oliver Heldens and Jay Hardway, the Frenchman Watermät and DJ duo, Kimotion. Ushuaïa's male hosts served up the drinks in a shirt emblazoned message with “You can't download a live music experience.” I reckon that underpinned the majority of the revelers feelings, especially with the production efforts that go into sliding in with the Multiply roster's bass – an audiovisual smacking which we can't replicate through any tech screen.
Oliver Heldens set the live experience pace for the sound swooners before Garrix flavoured the strobes, smoke and fire bursts with his bellowing selection. EDM hits brings out some level of animated dance moves, that's got to be said. The dancing was of very high entertainment value, especially at the point Garrix traded in electro for hip hop with Big Sean's I Don't F&ck With You and another fave, O.T Genasis's CoCo which induced seemingly badass sensibilities in one American as he screamed “I feel so f*cking gangster right now.” EH YO THUG. MURDAAAA.
He might have moved on since making his chart slammer, Animals, but his fans are still as hungry as ever for it, preying down on the tune like lions on a zebra's striped coat. No clarification required but Garrix made sure he connected with his fandom with shout outs, “are you having a good time” and the instructionally infectious, “put your f#cking hands up". Collab effort, Reload from Sebastian Ingrosso, Tommy Trash and John Martin was also slammed down alongside Calvin Harris's Flashback, Galantis's Runaway (U&I) and Avicii's Waiting For Love.
Midnight crashed in. The area was minus the music but by next week Martin will be back calculating the crowd for some induced aural carnage.
WORDS | Aimee Lawrence PHOTOGRAPHY | Ushuaïa
