Poor Privilege had a rough go of it this past week, with Lady Gaga (so rumour has it at least) and her beat spinning sidekick DJ White Shadow first confirming then cancelling their appearances at the Privilege closing party, with, in all likelihood, even more frustrating inconsistency behind the scenes than what filtered through to the public – which was frustrating enough! Whilst Gaga fans went through a traumatic period of emotional schizophrenia over those few days, anyone who knows anything about Privilege, however, was confident that SupermartXé in the Main Room would be an exciting, extravagant and highly amusing show whether Gaga arrived in an egg, wrapped in steaks or otherwise, and that the more underground party in the Vista Club would be a blissful musical heaven and haven well into the daylight hours.
It panned out just so.
SupermartXé was even bolder than usual, having chosen a religious Christian theme as the aesthetic basis for this gay-friendly extravaganza. The stage was transformed into a Church, complete with pulpit, stain-glass backdrop, organ and, most daringly, a huge Jesus-on-the-Cross statue watching over the decadence below, in a not-so-subtle nod to those demographics a little less approving of the gay community than others. An impossible array of weird and wonderful characters came out to play from all corners of the Privilege main room, highlights on the stage being some tactically placed pleather codpieces, jewels cascading down waxed chests, crowns of thorns and the usual writhing temptresses on their rotating discs of erotica up the back. Magic moments include an energetic front-woman beatboxing (surprisingly well) whilst the entire crowd sang Seven Nation Army and when a Grim Reaper type figure took front of stage and flicked his cape advantageously around his well-sculpted naked personage to the tune of Toca's Miracle. Presently he started spinning rapidly and we all…er… saw it several times! Classic SupermartXé.
I drifted across to the Vista Club just after 5am and, despite dipping in and out of SupermartXé madness a few more times before leaving, essentially made this great glass container my habitat for the rest of the morning. Solomun, who has his talented finger in almost every superclub pie on the island this season, was working the acoustics nicely, knocking out the Sharam Jay remix of Montel Jordan's This Is How We Do It that everyone's been absolutely frothing over this later half of the season, myself included. He sidled along with his trademark groove, with plenty of vocals to sing a long to and even a tangent into some jazzy piano riffs at one point with a Chilly Gonzales number. Some standout tracks were Benediction, by Hot Natured feat. Ali Love and Solomun's own remix of Noir & Haze's Around.
John Digweed started off with a similar sound to Solomun, with Ben Pearce's What I Might Do as an opener, though he smoothed it out even further afterwards and dropped the vocals for a while. I had been lagging a bit at this point but Digweed's deep-set groove yanked me back into the game, the way the best DJs can sometimes, and I took full advantage of the extra space that was forming to throw some energetic but questionable shapes. The Vista's vista was captivating; there's something quite exciting about watching the black sky peppered with twinkling lights of Ibiza town slowly fade to grey whilst we dance away in our Privilege bubble… Digweed started really hammering it out for a while with tracks like Technasia's Bastille Days, but then cooled things down towards the end (Duke Dumont – The Giver being a highlight), finally finishing with a very progressive track for the change-over to M.A.N.D.Y.
The M.A.N.D.Y. boys came out with guns blazing, championing a classic tech-house sound which shook the Vista off onto a slightly different path, giving us all the energy to carry on into the daylight hours. The little patch of orange behind the hills eventually sprouted a large rising sun, and when we finally left it was with a sense of satisfaction that we'd successfully soldiered on until sunglasses time. Although fraught with difficulties over recent cancellations, Privilege wrapped up the season well, proudly displaying the successful juxtaposition of commercial and underground that they've been courting all summer.
