- Scared my friends don’t like me, think I’m lame boring bad and annoying and are all going to abandon me so why don’t I just blow things up and move back to Scotland before they do

- A job has come up in Scotland actually which hardly ever happens but there’s almost 0 point in applying because Ally won’t quit his job, and it wouldn’t really be fair to expect him to give up his dream career to move somewhere with hardly any opportunities just because I’m homesick, but does that mean I’m stuck down here forever? Tired of living in a 1 bedroom flat but don’t want to move to Kent, what do

- Would it even be the same in Scotland anyway because half our friends there are having babies now whereas none of our friends here are, maybe we need to enjoy this time while we can

- A job has also come up in Berlin ie the place I will forever dream about living in and think what if I had moved there after uni. But see above. Guess I just won’t bother.

I think it’s really cool that there’s still this place where people from all over Europe and increasingly the rest of the world congregate because they like dance music. I really felt that when we went to see Sven Väth and at Circoloco especially. The crowds at those particular events really felt like they were there for the music (not least because Circoloco was so horrendously busy that if you didn’t like the music you would simply leave immediately, there was one quite annoying Dubai vibes group near us but they were at least getting into it) and it felt like tapping into something of what Ibiza must have been like 25 years ago. Everyone has come together to this special, beautiful place to enjoy this music and just have a great time and feel free, and outside of specific festivals I don’t think anywhere else like that really exists in the same way? Maybe Berlin but it’s not quite the same. Dancing in the DC-10 garden as the planes landed over our heads was crazy and felt like such a uniquely Ibiza moment. There were a few little moments of interactions with other people on the dance floors or seeing stuff go down that just felt so lovely and like yes, this is what it’s all about. My fave was some really young Americans who looked a bit geeky and like they might be on their first ever pills, one of them turned to his pal during Sally C’s set, wide eyed and delighted, and went “this is fucking LITTTT!!!” You’re so right son! It is lit!

HOWEVER

The level of ostentatiousness, money and greed on display over there makes me a bit uncomfortable. We didn’t go to anything at the big super clubs but when you try and research it all online it’s constant posts and Reddit threads and whatever about how to get VIP, how much is a table, how much is bottle service and it’s fucking insane to me. All about status and flashiness and sorry to sound like an old 90s raver commenting on a tiktok but I just don’t think that’s what dance music was ever meant to be about? And the clubs go along with it because they can make a fucking killing. What happened to all under one roof raving!!! We still go out in London semi regularly and I’ve never been anywhere with VIP or bottle service lmao. It all seems a bit Vegas and that’s not our vibe at all. Even at DC-10 which only had a tiny and not that visible VIP bit, the sheer amount of people they had packed in the rooms after the garden shut was genuinely dangerous at times and the only reason I can see for it is that they want the ticket sales money. We managed to find a little spot to dance (for Gerd Janson who we simply REFUSED to miss) but it was really really tight. I called it with about 15 mins of his set to go and said to Ally I’d just get him outside cause I was a bit over it, and it was a genuine struggle to get through the crowd and out so god knows what would happen if someone collapsed or if there was a fire. You see old Ibiza videos and it’s people dancing on the same terrace but in the middle of the day and there’s so much space, but they’re not allowed to do that anymore because of noise restrictions. No more crazy free parties on the beaches. People used to go all day bouncing from club to afters to beach party to club and now everything has to run 11-6. Not that I think I’d have the energy for that anyway but it all just feels a lot more managed and restricted than the stories you hear about and you can’t help but think it’s because then the clubs (and the family that owns all the big ones/half the island) can control the flow of cash much better this way. Capitalism sucks up everything and turns it into the money machine.

On that note it’s so fucking expensive for a drink as well fuck me. Not quite as bad as the horror stories I’d heard but why did I pay €15 for a bottle of Heineken.

It’s also quite funny to me how Ally and I are into dance music, house specifically rather than techno but like we keep up with radio shows, new releases, who’s doing what, we’re not exactly deep diggers or really embedded in the underground or whatever but we think we’re reasonably on top of that side of “the scene”. And then we go to Ibiza and the guys headlining all the superclubs, we’ve never even heard of them! And they’re selling out these massive clubs every week! Who the fuck is Hugel! The Circoloco lineups are always full of stuff we like and there are DJs we love popping up here and there every summer, but the mega clubs are like a whole other side of dance music we apparently don’t have a clue about. And tbh I don’t care to cause I’m not interested in paying €100 to stand gridlocked in a crowd of 23 year olds while they all film it.