Ibiza, Spain
How we've ended up watching a Spanish drag queen berating her audience at 4.30am in a dingy club hidden in the walls of the Old Town is a mystery... I think alcohol must have been involved!
Rewind eight hours and we're showered, refreshed and suited and booted, hopping in a cab to join Jo, Nic and Dani, plus Jo's friend Sinead, who I know through her work at Mute Records, and Sinead's friend Sarah, for dinner.
Jo has booked us into one of Ibiza's finest restaurants, Sa Punta in Talamanca, owned - as so many places on this island are - by club giants Pacha. We are seated by the balcony with a stunning view across the water to Ibiza Town, lit up at night with a bobbing flotilla of yachts, ships and fishing boats twinkling away between the shores of Talamanca and the bay of Eivissa.
The menu arrives and Sinead tells us that she's had many recommendations for the miso black cod, which is one of my all time favourites, so it's duly ordered alongside other dishes of sea bass and seafood linguine, bottles of chilled wine and to round things off, a deliciously wicked Irish coffee, its rich, dark caffeine masking the hit of whisky sat within.
The night air, fine food, good company and chilled music combine to make a memorable evening topped off by us all ascending to the roof terrace which has sofas and day beds scattered around and a shack-like bar behind which stands a barman who charms Dani, Sinead and Sarah so much that they spend the next two hours chatting to him, and accepting a string of free shots.
Sinead had mentioned earlier that she'd popped us all on the guestlist for a club called Boom, where the Defected label has a big night going on. Coman and I have itchy feet and are ready for a dance but the music here is too chilled out and the girls are too enamoured of their hunky bartender to notice time is ticking away, until we point out that the guestlist will soon close as it's knocking on 2am.
Realising there's no dancing likely to happen we take matters into our own hands and I order a cab. Bidding farewell, we decide to head over to the Old Town and visit a club we discovered last time we were on the island. Camp as anything, with a DJ spinning disco classics and sheer pop frivolity it had been a ridiculously OTT night shared with Jo and the gang we'd rented a villa with - Zena, Karen and Gemma. We'd danced for hours and Coman had even ended up wearing wings and a crown made of balloons for some strange reason which seemed to make sense at the time.
Tonight however, Club Anfora is a bit of a let down. And when I say a bit, let's just be honest and say a lot. It's near deserted when we arrive, and the gloomy cave like interior has a sad little disco ball above a tiny dancefloor and what looks like a wedding DJ perched on a little stage with a glittery curtain behind it.
By now it's nearly 3am and there's only about 30 people in the entire place. We wander upstairs with our drinks and discover a couple of bars similarly woefully attended. It's Saturday night people! What's going on?
Coman, longing to relive the dancetastic silliness of two years ago, is certain things will improve, after all wasn't it about 4am that things got going last time? I'm really not sure I've got the energy to wait around and find out, but slowly it starts filling up, although the music isn't quite what we remember and no-one's really dancing.
And then through the meagre crowd strides a 7ft drag queen, in a full length red gown and enormous stillettos, trailing some rather under-dressed dancers in her wake. They all gather at the side of the stage and at last, something's about to happen. Here comes the entertainment!
Clumping up on to the little stage and crowding around the DJ they stand waiting for the beat to drop in an utterly bored way. Eventually - and we're talking almost ten minutes here - they start shuffling around in a vague approximation of the beat, looking so disinterested it's comical. Mind you, if I had to go-go dance in just a pair of leather knickers and a bolero jacket I'd be having an out-of-body experience to get me through it.
They wiggle and point, turn around and move from side to side in an hilariously lacklustre way, backing up the flame-haired, glamour-puss drag queen and her somewhat more ropey companion, a scarey dark-haired harridan who looks just like a cross between Imelda Marcos and Margherita Pracatan, and mimes away like she's only just learnt to talk. This goes on for quite some time and is fascinating, rather like watching a car crash in slow motion, all set to what sounds like a Spanglish soundtrack of terrible hi-bpm remixes of Annie Lennox. The two queens eventually give up and stagger off the stage, leaving the greased up matadors vaguely vogueing and flaunting their wares, wondering where the hell their lives had gone wrong to end up doing this for a living.
Even they can't be arsed much longer, which is ironic seeing as that's all we can all see whenever they turn around, and vacate the stage leaving the DJ to spin even more questionable Europop. We're about to follow their lead when there's commotion behind us as the red-haired drag act is back, this time with a microphone.
Up she gets, yelling in a surprisingly butch voice about how happy she is we're all at Club Anfora, what a great night we're having, thanking us, God, her parents etc for bringing us all here with her tonight and so on. Or at least that's what I think she must be saying. It's all in Spanish and I don't know what pills she's on but where I'm standing I can see a half-empty club of punters wondering if they too have come on the wrong night, rather than an adoring crowd.
She decides she's going to perform a number, and does so, all fluttering fan-in-hand drama, with diva-tastic swoops and moves as though she's on stage at Carnegie Hall. The effect is somewhat marred though, by the staging confines on which she totters and, unsteady on her stilletoes, she trips and goes arse over plastic tits, still gamely miming away as she falls.
Her raven-haired harpy of a drag sister comes on next, grabbing the microphone and, oh God no!, she's actually going to sing. Her strangulated caterwauling is wisely and frantically lowered in the mix by the DJ and she prowls around in a fraying basque like a 50-year old, Philipino Lady Gaga. On she goes, huge exaggerated mouth movements made even more alarming by her smeared make-up and staring eyes.
After she finishes, to a smattering of bemused applause, she too delivers a speech about Club Anfora but she ain't thanking nobody, no sirree, she's gonna have a go at everyone and everything. Or so it seems... It's rather hard to workout exactly what's going on at this point but if she's happy right now I really wouldn't want to see her angry.
It's the aforementioned hour of 4.30am and even Coman realises that this is the pinnacle of the evening. Nothing's going to get better than being abused by a shrieking tragedy in fishnets, wig and a basque. I mean, what could?
And so we take our leave, mooching down through the winding and by now deserted streets of the Old Town, coming out by the marina where with an incredible stroke of luck a taxi with its green light on display pulls up beside us just as the heavens open and the humidity of the night falls back as rain.
We're back at Hotel Garbi by 5am and sink gratefully into our beds, exhausted and in need of sleep, the alarm set for just a few hours away to make it down for breakfast. Thankfully I'm untroubled by dreams of bad drag queens, belting it out like Shirley Bassey while as doped up as Judy Garland. Tomorrow will be more civilized I'm sure.
