Title: Alejandro Sanz in Concert
Location: Adeje Football ground
Description: The Spanish singer songwriter live on stage. Show starts at 10pm. Tickets are 25 euros and 50 euros and on sale via most music shops, El Corte Ingles and www.generaltickets.com/cajacanarias
Date: 2010-08-28

“In the silence I can hear their breaking hearts…”

Robert Cray, one of the greatest guitar players on the planet, closed his eyes, and let his fingers do their magic on his Fender Stratocaster. His eyes were tightly shut and his lips silently mouthed along with the electrifying and heartfelt lament despatched from the guitar in his hands. The sound cleaved a path through the still night and sent a delicious tingle down my spine.
This was my nirvana; a hot sultry evening beneath shocking red and perfectly named flamboyant trees listening to blues so cool they could have created their own dry ice effects.

You can keep your big stadiums and the likes of Elton John, Rod Stewart and Simply Red. Listening to a musician such as Robert Cray hypnotise an intimate audience underneath the tower of the Iglesia de la Concepción in Santa Cruz is the real deal as far as I’m concerned. If there was only one music festival I could attend in Tenerife during the year it would Santa Blues.

Santa Blues is held each June in one of the most picturesque urban spots on Tenerife, the Noria district in Santa Cruz. ‘La Noria’ is an enchanting mix of cobbled streets bordered by old townhouses and chic bars and restaurants buzzing with the capital’s beautiful people. It’s fitting that one of the trendiest nocturnal scenes on Tenerife should be the venue for something as cool as a blues festival.

Yet Santa Blues doesn’t attract the crowds that it should. The area around the festival might be buzzing, trying to grab a beer in one of the bars near the plaza where the festival is held requires patience and no little skill in the art of attracting the barman’s attention. But the crowd which congregates to watch the musicians perform usually consists only of a few hundred people.

The low attendance seems crazy considering the calibre of artists who have played at the festival (Ike Turner, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy) especially considering that the whole damn shebang is free. However, in a way I’m glad. I like the small and intimate atmosphere; it feels more in the spirit of what a blues session should be. It might not be a dark, hot and smoky blues club in downtown Chicago, but close your eyes and it might as well be.

Although I enjoy being seduced by the blues, I’m no aficionado and therefore not familiar with any of the names headlining Santa Blues 2010 (Larry McCray, Sandra Hall & Kenny Neal). But then I hadn’t heard Irish up and coming band, The Deans or The Vargas Blues Band before last year’s festival and both blew me away with a barrage of R’n'B guitar riffs and soulful energy.

So I’ll be there again this year soaking up the blues but, given my poor ‘grabbing the barman’s attention’ skills, probably not the beer.

Santa Blues Factfile: The Festival runs from 24th to 26th June, starting at 9pm each night.  See Tenerife Magazine’s ‘Happenings’ for more details.

CHECK OUT PHOTOS FROM SANTA BLUES 2010 HERE

Title: Power Of Music
Location: Plaza del Iglesia, Buzanada
Description: Early start (6pm) for this youth aimed concert. Bands include DMent, Dangerous Mistake, Alto Voltaje, Mr Day Tripper, and B-For-Team.
Date: 2010-07-03

Title: OST Christmas Concert
Location: Santa Cruz port esplanade
Link out: Click here
Description: Tenerife Symphony Orchestra round off christmas night with their annual open air FREE concert. Rousing standards from the highly acclaimed orchestra.
Starts at 10pm, ends late with a spectacular display of fireworks.
Date: 2009-12-25

Eco Warriors vs Rock Rockers – the battle of the sounds

We suspect there’s a mysterious hippy community lurking around the north of Tenerife that spends most of its time lying naked on some beach sporting rainbow bandanas and getting their consciousness expanded by herbal inducements, man. They only appear in public when a really ‘sound’ fiesta comes along.

Well this month Los Silos staged the ‘Boreal Festival of the Whale’ and out came the beautiful people in their droves; all dreadlocks, patchouli oil and multi-coloured harem pants.
Pastel flags fluttered in the breeze above stalls selling kitsch bags made from recycled plastic, natural un-dyed clothing, juggling paraphernalia and beads – naturally.
There were infectiously rhythmic Batucada bands accompanied by a sort of Chinese Dragon whale, jugglers, a dreadlocked hippy on a uni-cycle and paragliders floating lazily above the whale skeleton on the cliff top.
All in all it was a gentle, earth-friendly affair that oozed love and peace.

The odd thing about it was the lack of live music which had been scheduled to appear at intervals throughout the afternoon and into the early hours. By the time Tenerife Magazine left just after 9pm all we’d seen was two bands taking an eternity to go through their sound checks and no actual live performance.
We suspect the sound engineers had experienced just a little too much consciousness expansion.

Dropping down the coast to the rock of Garachico, the scene couldn’t have contrasted more sharply.
The gentle tinkling of Tibetan Bells was replaced by the guttural roar of 1000cc motorbike engines; floaty pastel shaded cotton was replaced by black leather and studs, and a large stage bereft of musicians was replaced by a small one bouncing with screeching punk and rock guitars.

The Moto Rock festival was a fusion of biking and rock and filled the harbour with sexy, dangerous looking beasties and their bikes. In-between bands, the Kings of Leon and Kasabian blasted from the speakers urging performers waiting in the dressing tent to ever greater fantasies of rock stardom.
What the fest lacked in numbers it made up for in heart as one lead guitarist, clearly enthralled by his one-night rock stand, smashed his guitar to pieces at the final chords of the set.

Long live rock n roll indeed.