Music / Review
Review: Cafe Mambo, Motion – ‘The sweltering heat was rivalled by the heat from the decks’
Balearic beats, blistering sunshine and an alarming number of Brits with sunburned shoulders meant you could have been forgiven for thinking you were on the White Isle while walking down Feeder Road on Saturday afternoon.
Café Mambo, an Ibiza institution renowned world over for star-studded DJ sets against a backdrop of glorious sunsets on the island’s west coast, brought a taste of their hedonistic delights to Motion for a vintage day party this weekend past.
Housed in the outdoor container yard, attendees rotated between cutting shapes and seeking refuge in the Wray & Nephew container bars that flank the dancefloor area, seeking refreshments and respite from the intense afternoon sun. The prepared among the partiers brought with them handheld fans coveted by those around them for a moment of cooling breeze.
is needed now More than ever
The sweltering heat was rivalled by the heat from the decks as some of Mambo’s finest resident DJ’s played through a catalogue of sultry house bangers.
Southport-born Bontan dropped one my favourite tracks of the day with an unspecified remix of Baianá by Barbatuques – itself a cover of a classic Brazilian folk song – featuring a hypnotic mouth harp riff laid over a thumping bassline.
As the sun set, though maybe not quite as spectacularly as it does in Café Mambo’s hometown, those that had been avoiding the sun emerged from the shady sanctuary, by this point very well hydrated, to properly join the party.
The day’s headliners were husband and wife duo and Café Mambo staple Lovely Laura & Ben Santiago, and by the time they came to the stage a sizeable crowd had amassed at the container yard stage.
The dance music power couple have pioneered a winning fusion of live saxophone over house beats and are veritable proof that any song can be improved by a sax solo. They proved to be the perfect tonic to hazy evening heat.
With fine instrumentalism and beat selection they whipped up the crowd, though sunburned and slightly delirious, into a frenzied mess and a finale that did justice to the party’s respected namesake.
Main photo: Sam Roberts
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