Review: Life in Color at Privilege, 12th August

This week's technicolour avalanche had an Aoki-shaped surprise.

A technicolour avalanche occurs at Privilege's Life In Color paint party every Wednesday, having landed in Ibiza for the first time this year. During week 9 there were several paint-covered fellows floating about splashing paint to unsuspecting clubbers with bottles the size of ketchup, the chaos also partially due to the soundtrack: you can expect a thrilling mash up of trance, breakbeat, dubstep, progressive house and trap.

Calming things Danny Solano decided to take the tempo down with Galantis' Runaway as a countdown behind him notified me when a load of paint was going to hit, whether I chose to embrace it or hide. The world's largest paint party inside the world's biggest club immediately strikes you with its arena type space, the stage surrounded by a colourful assemblage of intflatables. Eternal major tune Heads Will Roll blasted out, as the counter drew closer to zero.

Up next was Borgore who, with a diamond incrusted logo, hyped the crowd at the front of the stage getting everybody to chant ‘whey, woah'. Cannons then jet out paint goods, the mini mosh pit that had collected at the front enjoyed the rain; splattered heads within. A rainbow of streamers pelted to the back hitting inflatable plant hanging creatures on its journey. Borgore brought with him harder sub and jacking bass lines, with snippets of remixes of CoCo and Shiba San's Okay.

When they weren't hanging from the ceiling to show off their acrobat skills, dancers at the front were equipped with buckets of paint and later hoses to pour out into the vicinity. Skrillex's remix of Cinema feels vintage now, but charged the playful crowd as the affectionate vocals and strings on Calvin Harris' Summer followed. Fifteen minutes into the buzzing and ceaseless chords ample in Headhunterz' set, he announced that we were being recorded and streamed for a friend to continue the set. Once revealed to be Steve Aoki, there was cheering as he entered the stage, instantly dropping some churning bass with a brisk breakdown.

Aoki directed a mass sit-down with some definite attitude (a rebellious handful left standing). All to jump up at the bass drum to the pair's brand new song together, both standing on the platform exclaiming like they've just won the lottery. After Steve Aoki had popped over to cause some mischief the Bollywood influenced Get Low from Dillon Francis & DJ Snake continued the fun. The stage provided a festival like experience with the whole event as about as neon as a rave can get.


WORDS | Emma Gillett PHOTOGRAPHY | Aido Monge

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