Scene
Cover photo: @shootinglikepablo
Last Friday, FutureScope and Roots brought Paul Kalkbrenner to the Split audience, throwing an open-air party to remember right in front of Split’s new club, Porat.
The night kicked off at 8pm with Miro, who I unfortunately missed, and I arrived just in time to catch the second half of Toni Juranović’s set. I’d heard him once before, but this time he played in front of a much bigger crowd – and he was great. His set had character and perfectly matched the vibe of the evening.
At 11:30pm, Shipe stepped up and immediately connected with the crowd, building the hype for the legend everyone was waiting for.
After a short break to prepare the stage, Paul Kalkbrenner finally appeared. With a name as big as his, it’s normal for expectations to run sky-high, and you could really feel the excitement on the floor as people waited for this icon to step out.
Paul began.
The crowd greeted him with cheers and applause, and he gave back the only way he knows how. His entire set was a back-and-forth exchange of energy between him and the audience. I won’t go into detail about his DJ skills – if you’ve ever seen him live, you already know, and if you haven’t, you need to go as soon as you get the chance. What blew me away, besides the music, was the absolutely perfect atmosphere on the dance floor. People around me were fully present with the music – dancing, raising their hands, smiling. The energy was breathtaking, especially when Kalkbrenner dropped his classics like No Goodbye, Revolte, Cloud Rider, his remix of Te Quiero, and of course Sky and Sand.
There were moments when he’d play something pure and uplifting that melted everyone’s hearts, only to suddenly break it with a dark, heavy twist – and both moods were embraced equally by the crowd, all of us riding his sounds as one. Everywhere you looked, faces were lit up with smiles, people completely lost in the music, dancing together to Brenner’s rhythms. I’ll say it again: if you haven’t seen Paul Kalkbrenner live, go, listen, feel it.
And finally, “Splitski as” DJ Jock, in his hometown in front of his own crowd, closed the event he had organized together with Anđelko Šipušić – Shipe. Taking over the audience after Kalkbrenner isn’t easy, but honestly, I can’t think of anyone better to do it than Jock. By then, the crowd had started to thin out a bit, leaving mostly the local party crowd, among whom a special connection could be felt when Jock played Dino Dvornik’s Afrika.
The crew danced across the spacious floor until 5am, after which everyone moved on to Velvet, a nearby Split club, where Shipe was waiting for us at the after. The afterparty went on until 10am, with Shipe and Jock taking turns behind the decks – two legends who were also the driving force behind the whole event.
The headliner more than lived up to his name, creating pure magic with his audience. But the local guys deserve just as much praise – both for their organizational effort and their DJ skills. They’re the ones pushing the Croatian scene forward, especially in Split, where people are hungry for nights like this. And judging by the atmosphere on the floor, the crowd couldn’t have been more grateful to finally experience one in their own city.
Photos by @shootinglikepablo:
