25,000 people all dressed in white. 3 large flowers. 5 DJs. 10,000 pounds of glitter. The list could go on, the numbers could be crunched, but the memory can’t be matched. That, in a nutshell, is Sensation White.
Sensation is essentially an indoor dance party to house music (notably, by DJs I’ve never heard of). At an event where getting lost is a way of life and you spend the entire time surrounded by sweaty strangers, I honestly had more fun here than any other concert I’ve ever been to. For someone who is neither a rave nor a house music aficionado, that is saying something.
First of all, our tickets were supposed to be in the 200 level section of the Palau Sant Jordi, the Olympic stadium built for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Somehow, we ended up in the front row on the floor, casually hanging out with the emcee for some of the night. It was like a reverse Titanic effect, like in the scene where everyone is trying to come up and get past the gates as the bottom of the ship floods. Instead of people trying to get up, there was a mad rush to get onto the floor and get lost in the sea of white. Our group of four snuck past the guard and ended up amongst the crowd of crazies.
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Mr. White, a DJ who paints himself white for every performance (makes sense), opened the show with a bang. As all the songs sort of ran together, the sights never ceased to entertain. The bulbous flower from which the DJ emerged had pyrotechnics shooting out of it from all ends, women were descending from the ceiling wearing gypsy-esque outfits and rain was pouring from the ceiling. The audience was just as entertaining. There were people of all nationalities and outfits of all kinds. I decided to skip the face paint that was being offered at various sites throughout the city that day and did my own makeup of smoky eye and gold glitter which I thought was adventurous and off the wall until I saw what some of these people were sporting. Butterflies, animals, stars … you name it, and it was painted on someone’s face. It was as if Ke$ha vommed on 25,000 people. And I loved every bit of it.
There is only so much house music one can handle and as soon as sobriety set in, it was time to go. We hailed a cab (after walking almost a mile) and went back to our hostel. At this hostel, they did not give us normal keys, but rather, watches with electronic sensors that we were to wear at all times. So, naturally, we pretended we were in Spy Kids … again … and pretended to communicate through them. It’s just how we tend to roll on these delirium-filled weekends.
We managed to squeeze in some cultural activities including a trip to the Parc Güell, an architectural garden of sorts designed by famed architect Antoni Gaudi and situated on the hill of El Carmel. It was a beautiful day in Barcelona and from high up, the city looked majestic. We could see the famed W hotel, the harbor with docked cruise ships and sailboats, the beach, and, of course, the Sagrada Familia towering above all.
Per usual for weekend trips, Barca was a blur, but in the best way possible.