In late August 1987, four London music heads boarded a plane for a week-long holiday in Ibiza. There they discovered a little-known club called Amnesia and a DJ called Alfredo and instead of coming back with a few out-of-focus snaps, Paul Oakenfold, Johnny Walker, Danny Rampling and Nicky Holloway returned home exhausted but burning with a missionary zeal.
Paul Oakenfold: In 1987, two friends of mine, Ian St Paul and Trevor Fung, were working out in Ibiza, so I decided to have my 24th birthday there and invite some other friends - Danny Rampling, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker. We were all DJing or running clubs in London at the time. I'd been to Ibiza once before, for work, because I was working with Divine, in my capacity as a club promotions man, and she was playing Ku [now Privilege], the biggest club there. But this was my first proper trip.
Nicky Holloway: We hired a villa near San Antonio, near the bay. We were only kids and thought it would be a cool, flash thing to do. We'd been going to Ibiza since 1982, but mainly wandering around San An, going to the Cafe Del Mar in the afternoon and [nightclub] Es Paradis at night. On the first night of the holiday we bumped into Trevor Fung, a London DJ working out in Ibiza, who told us about Amnesia and this new drug called ecstasy. I wasn't going to do any, but then saw everyone having such a good time and thought, 'Fuck it'. Before then, we were like any other kids, just drinking.
Paul Oakenfold: Amnesia was an old farm, miles away, so we were like, 'How are we going to get there?' In those days, we had just about enough money for a bread roll - Ibiza's expensive, always has been. But we went. It was the first night of our holiday and we'd heard it was something special.
Alfredo Fiorito, Amnesia DJ: I had been a newspaper journalist in Argentina, writing about music and running rock'n'roll concerts, but I left during the military dictatorship in the late Seventies. I ended up in Paris, then Madrid, then I visited a friend in Ibiza and just never left. I was selling candles and clothes. Then, in 1982, a guy I knew who had a club called Amnesia decided to go to Thailand. He gave me the keys and said I was in charge. I checked the mixers and went 'Wow! That's how you do it!'
Amnesia was a farmhouse converted into a club, a place for musicians and Indian gurus. It was freer than other places, and cheaper. Background or social class didn't matter. I was the only DJ. We opened at 3am and went on until midday, so people would come down after the other clubs shut. It had a very special atmosphere.
Nicky Holloway: It was open for a good few years before we discovered it. At first it was just a farmhouse with a few tables and chairs that people went to after Ku, and it grew slowly.
Ulises Braun, bar owner: By 1987, Amnesia had six or seven bars and about half of them were rented out to people like me. Everything in Amnesia was spontaneous and different. It was a wild time. There were no laws: people were making love on the dancefloor, drinking and dancing, taking litres of liquid ecstasy between them. It looked like a Federico Fellini movie; every personality was different. Everyone was dressed up. I dressed like D'Artagnan, in high boots.
Danny Rampling: Amensia was a complete revelation. Alfredo, as a DJ, blended texture and music in a way I would compare to a Miro painting. For me, he was the Larry Levan [legendary DJ from the Paradise Garage in New York in the late Seventies] of Europe. Interestingly, Alfredo was connected to an American who was part of the Paradise Garage group, who used to supply him records. Dancing in the open air, surrounded by an incredible mix of sexy people was mind-blowing.
Johnny Walker: We were under the stars, in the warm summer air, hearing this amazing mixture Alfredo was playing. In the middle of the open air dancefloor was a mirrored pyramid, then around the edges were bars and chill out areas with cushions, and Mediterranean and tropical plants. It was high walled, like being in a tropical garden.
Paul Oakenfold: In England at that time, clubs only played one type of music, and London was full of attitude. But at Amnesia you had 7,000 people dancing to Cyndi Lauper. Total freedom.
Alfredo: In the summer of 1987 I was playing Thrashing Doves' 'Jesus on the Payroll', Elkin and Nelson's 'Jibaro', Joao Gilberto, Talking Heads, Prince, Bob Marley, the Woodentops. Early in the evening I'd play Manuel Göttsching's 'E2-E4' or Art of Noise's 'Moments in Love'. I was playing music from South America, Europe, different places. It was the time of the Berlin Wall, glasnost, and there was a feeling of unity among Europeans that influenced the music.
Nicky Holloway: We all tried ecstasy for the first time together, and then the whole thing made sense. Alfredo was playing [Chicago house label imprints] Trax and DJ International next to Kate Bush and Queen, all the white English acts we'd turn our noses up at. But on E, it all made sense. Half an hour or so after you necked a pill you would suddenly feel this euphoric wave go through you, like shooom! - hence the name of Danny's club - and you suddenly felt that everything in the world was all right.
Ulises Braun: He played disco, new wave, classical, Argentinian tango. People like Paul Oakenfold would be watching him like he was a god. There were people taking their clothes off, making love, I tell you the truth. When Alfredo stopped the music, people started to scream: 'Alfredo! Alfredo!' He was the only man, he played seven days a week, for six or seven months at a time. It was a special club, a madness house. Some people would come and look and just run away.
Danny Rampling: I'll bring something different to the table here. I felt there was something deeper, spiritually, running through the whole experience. I discovered something recently, through my own research. In August 1987, there was an event called the Harmonic Convergence, a global shift in unity consciousness through dance rituals, which is part of the Maya calendar teachings.
Alfredo: The people and the music made it. You'd get a young guy talking to an old person - and listening to each other. There were no sexy women showing their bum. Well, there was, but they'd be in the middle of the dancefloor. Everybody was part of the place.
Ulises Braun: There were a few celebrities like Steve Strange. I had to take care of Grace Jones when she was out of her mind. George Michael came after he filmed the video for Club Tropicana at Pikes Hotel. He was hanging out at my bar and did his first ecstasy. It seems like yesterday, him singing to me right in front of my face.
Danny Rampling: That first night, the last tune at sunrise was U2's 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For'. That night I found everything I had been looking for. All four of us changed that night. I can remember saying I think we may be on to something here.
Nicky Holloway: Afterwards, we went back to the villa. It was weird. We were all standing in the pool, holding hands listening to Art of Noise's 'Moments in Love', like a load of wallies. All chilled out and loved up, thinking it was going to change the world, thinking that if everyone did Es there would be no more wars.
Johnny Walker: We went back again later in the season and got a tape of Alfredo's set. After the club we'd go back to the villa, trying to work out what the tunes were, even though a lot of them were English. We were DJing in soul and jazz clubs and no one was playing house in London at that time, apart from in gay clubs. He'd play two copies of 'House Nation' which he'd cut up and stretch out, then play a George Michael track.
Paul Oakenfold: Alfredo used to sell tapes from the DJ booth and this record shop in Ibiza Town, so you could find out what he was playing, or at least try. Because I worked for promotions company Rush Release, I knew where to source the records; primarily they were alternative pop records. Nicky and Danny were soul heads so they didn't know you could get the Woodentops in HMV.
Nicky Holloway: We came back literally wearing the T-shirts and holding the flyers and within five months, Paul started Spectrum, Danny started Shoom and I started the Trip. Three groundbreaking clubs! It was no accident. We knew it was going to be huge.
Danny Rampling: When I came back my radio show went from downbeat smoochy soul sevens from Atlanta, to pumping Chicago house and alternative balearic. Some folk were horrified. The listeners increased by thousands; I probably had about 10 listeners before. I started playing things like Kenny 'Jammin" Jason's 'Can U Dance?', which still sends a surge of positive energy through me when I hear it. I've got that record framed at home.
Nicky Holloway: Paul and I had to go back for the closing night of Amnesia in October. I had a 24-hour delay at Gatwick and spent the night in a hotel they provided; Paul had to go via Majorca as there where no flights available - but we both eventually made it. We got to Amnesia about 2am, and I dropped a pill. There was a big electric storm that took out half the island's electricity. Our half. I ended up sitting outside a bar in San Antonio, buzzing my tits off. It was like we had won the lottery and lost the ticket.
Johnny Walker: The holiday didn't stop. We had had such an amazing time that we just wanted to carry on. That's really how it started. The people who worked in Ibiza came back at the end of the season, and most of them were from south London. Paul was working at a hip hop night in Streatham, so he said we could get the club after it closed at 2am and have a party. Those first free invite-only parties were basically just trying to recreate Ibiza. Paul even flew Alfredo over a few times. But the parties were so amazing that word of mouth spread and there was a need to do them in a bigger venue. Danny started Shoom, strictly invite only, Nicky started Trip. 1987 was doom and gloom with the British economy but we didn't have a clue, we were having a great time.
Paul Oakenfold: Before Ibiza I was playing LL Cool J and Run DMC but when we came back I was playing acid house and Cyndi Lauper. We had baggy trousers and were dancing like maniacs and everyone was like, 'What the fuck are you lot doing?' I started Spectrum on a Monday, which was all acid, and Future on a Friday night, which was indie mixed with dance. That's how I ended up remixing Happy Mondays, the Cure, the Stone Roses, and touring with U2.
Danny Rampling: There were 50 people on the first night of Shoom and 12 weeks later 2,000 people were in the street outside. That period from '87 until about '89 was spectacular.
Johnny Walker: It was Alfredo's influence. I always felt he never got the full credit. We were just in the right place and carried on the party.
Paul Oakenfold: That trip was so overwhelming. We were infatuated with it. Sometimes in life, and I've had this a couple of times, it's just right place, right time.
· Various 'Alfredo: the Original Sound of Ibiza' (Ministry of Sound) is out now. 'Paul Oakenfold: the Authorised Biography' by Richard Norris (Bantam Press) is published on 24 September
Back to the old house: then and now
Danny Rampling
On return from Ibiza started Shoom. Still DJs regularly and has just finished a compilation, 20 Years of House, with Nicky Holloway. Co-founder of personal development organisation Success University.
Nicky Holloway
Started The Trip at the Astoria, attracting up to 3,000 people, before opening the Milk Bar in 1990. Still DJs.
Paul Oakenfold
Ran London club nights Spectrum and Future. Went on to remix myriad acts and tour with U2. Is publishing his autobiography in September, along with his greatest remixes. Has just finished the soundtracks to two films.
Johnny Walker
Became a resident at Spectrum. Now living in Spain, where he runs a garden design business. Is writing a memoir about the summer of 1987.