ALL THIS HAPPENED IN IBIZA (PART 1)

• Home
• Stories We Tell
• Life Style

By Laura Martínez

The island has endless tales to tell. After decades as one of the World’s Top Places to Be, it  must have stored up many tales of excess, and indeed, the island does not disappoint. Let us take you on a trip (in three instalments) with our juicy anecdotes featuring all kinds of personalities who have dropped by Ibiza over the years. Here’s the first:

Nina Hagen’s Express Punk Wedding in Benirrás

The Godmother of Punk - as the great Nina Hagen is popularly known - gave a concert in Rome in 1985. A 17-year-old Ibizan boy was in the crowd with a colourful crest and leather jacket. His name was Iroquois, and he was the son of a South African hippie couple who settled in Ibiza at the height of the island’s spiritual moment. When Hagen - 33 years old at the time - finished performing, Iroquois didn’t hesitate to sneak through a window into the punk star’s dressing room and ask her: ‘Hey Nina, are you coming to Ibiza? Just before security kicked him out, she said yes, and a month later, she showed up to sing at KU nightclub, where Iroquois, from the front row, kept a close eye on her. She got him up on stage and the rest is Ibiza history. It was love at first sight, and they got married after a few days together in a wedding officiated by Nina’s guitarist, Billy Liesegang, followed by a wild celebration in the moonlight and on the high seas, in the party epicentre: Benirrás. The strange mixture of hippies - or peluts, as the Ibicencans called them - and punks in attendance witnessed the most unlikely express wedding the island has ever seen. The celebration lasted three days, watching the sun set, the moon rises and a sail boat to Formentera that God only knows how many round trips it made, loaded with whisky and vodka (the bride and groom’s favourite spirits), tons of music and a capacity bigger than a pirate ship. All of this is incredibly documented in a report made by the programme ’30 Minuts’ in 1987, which includes images of the ceremony, interviews with the bride and groom that are not to be missed and a version of ‘My Way’ by Frank Sinatra, sung by Nina Hagen hardcore style, as well as the song she specially composed for the wedding: ‘Punk Wedding’. Pure gold.

Eric Clapton and George Harrison’s mysterious boat accident

Out of all our anecdotes, this is the only one where nothing has been proved. But what would stories be without that touch of legend, right? Well, Eric Clapton and the most handsome of The Beatles, George Harrison, were frenemies. The reason? They had an epic confrontation during Harrison’s marriage to Pattie Boyd, with whom Clapton was secretly in love. Eric dedicated his smash hits ‘Layla’ and ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ to Pattie, and George did the same when he wrote The Beatles ‘Something.’ She finally married Clapton after she grew tired of Harrison’s apathy and indifference towards her. Needless to say, Pattie would also leave Clapton after a few years spent on an emotional rollercoaster, fed up with his addictions. Shortly after their divorce, Clapton met Italian actress and presenter Lory del Santo, with whom he would have his first child, Connor, who would inspire one of the most beautiful songs ever written, ‘Tears in Heaven’, after the tragic death of the boy, aged just 5 years old. Before this happened, and shortly after Eric and Pattie’s relationship went down the drain, between love and tragedy, between laughter and tears, there was his friend George, who accompanied him to Ibiza on one of his famous boat trips, something they used to do together. Legend has it that Clapton and Harrison almost died in a shipwreck as they were arriving on the island in 1977. What happened, nobody knows. Was it a biblical storm, another boat, or an iceberg? I could make it up, but I prefer to let your imagination run wild. We have proof of, witnesses and media reports included: the concert Clapton gave that same year in the Plaza de Toros in Ibiza.

Nico’s (The Velvet Underground) last bike ride

The unclassifiable German artist Christa Päffgen, better known as Nico, had an intense life full of memorable moments. The beautiful blonde became Andy Warhol’s muse during the 60s, which led to her foray into music, collaborating on the debut album of one of music’s most iconic bands, called The Velvet Underground & Nico. In 2003, Rolling Stone placed it at number 13 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. It’s no coincidence that this was precisely the only one Nico was a part of. Her dalliances with Lou Reed and John Cale did not go unnoticed by an industry that accused her of interfering in the band and causing problems among its members. Warhol sponsored Nico for this project, even though Cale and Reed, founders of the band, didn’t fully accept her presence in the recording studio, even though they had no complaints when they were in bed with her... After years of being the cursed, eternal blonde with a reputation for being ‘complicated’ and ‘dark’, words that the press frequently used to refer to Nico, she moved to Ibiza, where she found refuge years after a notorious affair with French actor Alain Delon. Nico and Delon had a son, Ari, who turned out to be the spitting image of his father, who never admitted his paternity. Nico was blissfully living in Ibiza away from the tabloids and the madding crowd when, on 18th July 1988, while cycling along one of the island’s roads, she fell and hit her head on the ground. Alongside her was her son Ari Boulogne - who bore the surname of his paternal grandmother, Edith Boulogne – and who, at the age of 25, witnessed the death of his 49-year-old mother. Ibiza keeps the memory of this brave, talented and strong woman, a woman denied her deserved place in music history as an artist.

90s supermodels obsessed with Pedro’s leather sandals.

If there’s one person in Ibiza who has many tales to tell, then it’s Pedro Planells. The leather craftsman and owner of the legendary shop, Pedro’s in Plaza del Parque, handled the feet of the most beautiful women on the planet: Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Elle McPherson.  They arrived every summer in Ibiza and went straight to Pedro’s to have sandals, bags, boots and belts made to measure by the famous craftsman. Pedro’s work became so in demand that there was a months-long waiting list for his accessories. At the same time, he elevated the work of the leather craftsman to an exclusive level. Planells ended up having several shops in Ibiza that were equally popular, but the stress was too much for him, and he decided to close them all, except the first, becoming a standard-bearer of an era. One shop, less work, more passion, which, in the end, is what it’s all about. This passion was recognised by Jean Paul Gaultier himself, who fell in love with the craftsman’s exquisite work and asked him to collaborate with him on several of his collections, creating the leather accessories that accompanied his designs. Personal orders from Armani and Valentino, who were also addicted to his famous Spartan leather sandals, were regulars in the shop. Although the shop closed a few years ago, coinciding with Planells’ retirement, the legacy of his love for a job well done and his dedication to leather craftsmanship, an Ibiza hallmark, will be eternally remembered on the island.