Darwin Deez

A four-hour ferry trip the next morn and we were in the smaller sister island of Ibiza. During the boat ride, I watched The Sorcerer’s Apprentice overdubbed in Spanish. Surrounding me were cute little Spanish children huddled in circles, playing card games.

“It fits 10,000 people.” Our Ibiza driver pointed out a massive club called Privilege as we zoomed down the highway. “It used to just be this big open air space, but now there are laws that if you own a club, it has to have a roof. Because you used to be able to hear the bass thumping for MILES.”

Two blocks from our hotel was a beautiful beach where almost half of the girls were topless. After all these years since puberty in America, hearing about nude beaches and sexually liberated Europe, at last I experienced it firsthand. I must admit, it lives up to the hype. Crazy gorgeous. The band waded out into the Mediterranean, so salty that it hurt our eyes, finding it almost impossible to sink when floating on our backs. Darwin and I, without proper trunks, had to swim in our undies, but no one seemed to mind. “So healing,” praised Darwin. The sun was shining, the day was hot. “Happy birthday, Miles,” we all wished to our drummer, whose special day was about to strike at midnight. Greg and I made our way back to the lobby, chatting and giggling. “One look at boobies and you guys are like Beavis & Butthead,” mocked our manager, Stephen. “I tried to play it off like a Continental,” Greg smiled, shaking his head, “but I can’t help it.”

Security guards dramatically escorted us through long white hallways to the area behind the stage. We glanced up at the countless balconies that lined the hotel courtyard. Swinging from many of them were beautiful bikini babes. When we would glance up at the balcony girls, they would scream and shout. It was insane. It was a Baywatch fantasy come true.

After our Ibiza set, I danced around in the crowd, waiting for Vaccines set #2. Three lunatic polo shirt party dudes noticed me, and introduced themselves as the Morley Brothers, or the Rowling brothers, some classic British name. After gratuitous rounds of congratulations and photo posing, they began showering me with vices. First cigarettes and booze, and soon, ketamine and ecstasy. I’d never partaken in either drug, but in the whirlwind of debauchery that is Ibiza, I figured there was no better place. By the time Zane Lowe took stage, my mind was pulsing in the strobe light of bliss.

An interesting musical phenomenon occurred during both of the two Zane Lowe sets. Each night, he began spinning Queens of the Stone Age’s “No One Knows”, and each night, the crowd, as if on command, began singing along with the guitar riff “Doot doo doo do, doot doo doo do.” I was fascinated, as I’ve never seen anything quite like this happen in America. Later, at Stansted airport, I inquired to Zane about this while we waited in the passport line. His explanation was that in drum n bass culture in England, people have become accustomed to singing along with their favorite instrumental riffs because none of the songs have lyrics. He also speculated that the sing-along was an extension of British football chant culture.

It was 3:30 am. The ecstasy wasn’t relenting, and, tired of staring at my hotel ceiling, I decided to slip out and wander the town some more. I ended up running into Greg and Miles and Seb and three Canadian girls that they had met at the after party. We hit the beach and went skinny dipping among phosphorescent algae sparking beneath the black waters.

Despite our shenanigans, I think our manager’s night takes the cake. The next morning, he moaned to us that he had seen some dude shit in public onto the tiled white dance floor of the posh after party. In front of everyone, the partier shook the leg of his dungarees and out plopped a nasty wet turd, upon which he raised his hands over his head in triumph. It was quite an aromatic mess, to boot. A staff member approached, poured sand on the defecation and swept it into a dustpan. All the while, partygoers clustered and filmed the cleanup on their smartphones. Disgusted, Stephen made his way back to the hotel. He happened to go down a residential street where Nigerian prostitutes were administering hand jobs to several British blokes. Stephen watched as a husky out-of-breath Brit hustled up to the scene to join the fray. another chided the women, “c’mon…faster…” the women gripped the girths of their customers in napkins.

Oh, Ibiza.