Legend has it that two of the Swedish House Mafia alumni stumbled across a Departure workers' party last season and had such a great time they decided to copy the name, slap an ‘s’ on the end of it and run their own party at whatever dive would take them (turned out to be Ushuaïa…maybe not such a dive). Well that’s flattering and all, but there’s only room for one Departure bash on this island, and it won’t play ‘Don’t You Worry Child’. Spotlight headed down to the original, best and FREE Departure, held on Tuesday at Itaca in San Antonio, to check out a very special guest of theirs and generally get messy the way Departure facilitates best.
Massive on the English deep house scene, stalwart on the decks at Sankeys Manchester (RIP) and Sankeys Ibiza, Darius Syrossian is a bit of a poster boy for Ibiza workers. So for the quintessential workers’ party in Ibiza to bag three juicy hours of the guy was at once a totally obvious choice and also a massive win!
When we arrived a little before 1am the party was still upstairs on the famous Itaca rooftop, with Departure resident Oliver Drops coming to the end of a solid three hour session. He and the crowd were already on borrowed time, as officially the roof was supposed to pipe down at midnight. But if the party is good workers will not go quietly, and with everyone stomping in the rhythm for as long as possible, Departure ended up sneaking an extra hour of open air fun-times .
Eventually the action shifted downstairs as Syrossian hit the decks, playing to an absolutely rammed den of house heads who were hanging off his every mix. Much to our delight he played a lot of his own productions, like ‘My Side Project, ‘Metal,’ and ‘Who’s the Douche’, and generally represented his UK brethren very heavily in his song choices, including Hot Since 82, Patrick Topping and more. Drinks were flowing (at one point down the back of my neck… but these things happen), fists were pumping and bum bags were abound. Holly Lester took control in the post-Syrossian hours and kept the room bouncing until close in front of a crowd that refused to dwindle.
Nice one Departure, as usual, but you may have broken me; party large, hangover brutal.
