Crushing on… Joris Voorn

My DJ crush on Joris Voorn started last summer. It was Ibiza, at the closing parties, and it was the last “We Love Sundays at Space” for the year. And Joris Voorn had the last set on the last stage. Of course, the legendary Terrace.

Joris had been smashing it hard for the previous few hours, and we’d all been dancing like crazy. With one hand pumping the air (as he does), Joris wound up his set to massive applause, screaming, hoots and cheers. The crowd loved it. And they weren’t going home.

Joris, being the good boy that he is, smiled at the crowd regretfully, but cast his eye towards the stage boss – clearly in charge with his sound-proof headphone radio-thingy and clearly someone who had not been dancing all night.

But the crowd wasn’t leaving. In fact, the crowd began to chant the baseline from Seven Nation Army: Naa, Na Na Na, Na Naaaaa, Naaaaa… over and over… we just weren’t moving.

And then the stage boss nodded his head (he had no choice unless he wanted a riot!), and Joris smiled knowingly and dutifully threw a switch and his proper closing track began pumping through the speakers. The crowd, predictably, went wild, the lights dropped low once more, and everyone shook their bodies to the beat.

Seven minutes later… the music died, the crowd erupted into cheers again, and this time the Seven Nation Army chant was even louder. No one wanted to go home, and Joris looked even more apologetic: it was clear he knew they were out of time and had to close it down or risk huge fines from the noise police. He was preparing the crowd for disappointment. But he looked over at the stage boss one more time.

And the stage boss nodded.

Joris was visibly stunned – shocked, even – but thrilled, and grinning like a six year old who was just given some candy. He instantly leapt to his laptop, frantically trying to find that one killer track that he hadn’t prepared earlier, to hunt out the perfect track to play at this precise point in time.

That track dropped… and about two minutes in the sweet, sweet chords of a never-before-heard remix of Strings of Life came wafting out of the speakers.

It was at that point that the hair on the back of my neck literally stood up and my entire body began to tingle. Many years previously, on my first (and only other) visit to Ibiza I had been dancing on that exact same terrace at We Love Sundays at Space. It was straight from the airplane to the club, and I had no idea what I had gotten myself into – but I was loving it! Eric Morillo had control of the decks that sunny afternoon, and the breeze was wafting through and the sun was high – this was back in the day when the Terrace hadn’t been enclosed to cut the noise down.

That summer, the big anthem was, in fact… Soul Central’s new take on… Strings of Life. And Morillo, of course, played it to the crowd.

So to hear this ancient tune updated, played again in the same place, so many years later – it was a very special moment that bought me right back to what it was like to be my younger, more innocent self. It made me think of this journey we’re all on, all the good things, the wonderful people, and the amazing experiences I’d had. The struggles, too, but above all, the great love shown to me by people in my life.

It helped a lot that I was with people I’ve come to love and call brothers as well as friends. This one’s for them.

PS: Didn’t think I’d go without dumping a track here, did you? You have to listen to “After the After”… simply superb. Go buy the full track. You must.