Eric Morillo @ Club Paradizzio, Athens (2001)
Reported by Matt Tuesday, January 8 2002
A visit to a club is a compulsory component of any summertime Greek holiday, and the roadside billboard on the way from the airport advertising 3 months of house legends at Club Paradizzio sort of caught my eye. I was quite happy to spot the club across the bay from where I was staying too...kind of made it a little easier to fit it into a busy schedule.
After narrowly avoiding risking death by four person ride on a motorbike we made it from pre club capers at a cafe overlooking the Aegean to Paradizzio. Despite making it by a respectable 1am the place still wasn't letting punters in...much to our annoyance. Still the beachfront locale enabled a reasonably pleasant wait.
The crowds began to swell outside so a team of bouncers made their way down from the club. The head bouncer insantly created a giggling fit...a man who makes Mr T look small in an irredescent blue polo shirt, skin tight three quarter length pants and shiny silver shoes kind of appears comical. I then descended into uncontrollable laughter as he proceeded to escort groups of two or three poeple inside, one group at a time, selecting slowly from no less than five entry gates that all led to one doorway. Some of the two hundred or so people waiting didn't find it as funny as me, but then I was near the front and we were in reasonably sharpish.
The entry price was a little on the steep side...making Melbourne prices seem reasonable and Hobart entries even more underpriced.....my laughing fit soon faded when we headed inside. The place was awash with blue lights...with silver palm trees swaying above dozens of white leather couches arranged over 6 levels in front of an enormous dancefloor...all in an outdoor setting that allowed a view out into the Aegean. My laughing was long forgotten when we found that to sit on a couch required the purchase of a bottle of spirits at around $150 per bottle, and strangely there were no seats other than the extremely comfortable looking lounges.
Still after watching the stars of Athens version of Neighbours mingle with Greek popstar Pavarotti lookalikes in white suits for a while from beside the couches instead of one them we downed our drinkies and headed for the dancefloor.
For a while two residents played B2B, the first seemed more intent on appearing completely disinterested, whilst the second went to a lot of effort to get things jumping. Before long, the reason a couple of thousand people had filled the place headed out behind the decks. After ten minutes of his mates playing with every piece of equipment Eric Morillo hit the decks.
The place went completely nuts when half a dozen strobes kicked in, the podium dancers climbed above the crowds, and the volume doubled about midway through his first tune.
The next few hours are sort of a little hazy...but picture a couple of thousand sweaty mediterranean tans grooving away on a beach on a 30 degree evening. Personally I found much of his track selection to be predictable...but the mixing superb. There were a couple of standouts amongst the increasingly tribal tech onslaught..including a welcome to the jungle...obviously Greek youth enjoys the thought of f@$%ing like animals, and there were a few variances to what i would call standard Eric Morillo fare...including Jan Driver hammerings towards the end of the set.
By the time we stumbled home along the beach after a sunset somewhat like the front of half a million Ibiza compilation CD's I was still smiling...and my faith in true house music had been restored.
The only downside being the busy schedule didn't allow for a return for David Morales, Roger Sanchez or Satoshi Tomie the following weekend.
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