Wish you were here

Decades Before The Ravers Reached Ibiza, A Legion Of Questing Souls Were Finding Peace, Creative Inspiration And Cosmic Truths On The Balearic Islands. With The Help Of Nick Mason, Robert Wyatt And Many Other Aspiring Lotus-Eaters, We Retrace The Journey Made By Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, Gong, Joni Mitchell And James Taylor To A Place Where Fisherman’S Huts And Pigsties Were Turned Into Idyllic Psychedelic Temples. “There Was A Lot Of Nudity…”

- Peter Watts

IT was, ADMITS nick Mason, an “absurd” idea. as Syd Barrett’s mental health unravelled, Pink Floyd settled on a last-ditch plan to restore the senses of their frazzled bandmate – a summer holiday in the Mediterranean. “Syd went out to Formentera with Dr Sam hutt, Rick [wright] and Roger [waters],” says nick Mason. “they’d gone out with Syd to rest and recuperate, staying on this island near ibiza, which at the time must have been very undeveloped, like a Greek island with virtually nothing there. it was a nice idea, but we understood so little about the problems with Syd, so the idea of taking him on holiday wasn’t really going to go here nor there in terms of sorting him out.” 

While the concept was flawed, the destination was not selected by accident. in the late 1960s, ibiza and Formentera had become embedded in counterculture consciousness as the Mediterranean end of the hippy trial, a primitive idyll where an international coterie of urban dropouts could forge a new consciousness on the beaches of Franco’s forgotten islands. Formentera, ibiza and the town of Deià in Mallorca became a sanctuary and inspiration for the likes of Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, James taylor and Joni Mitchell. even today, the islands retain the memory of those hippy days.