From Tie-dye to Black Leather – Saturday Night in Tenerife

It’s a weird thing about Los Silos. Venture there during the day and you’ll find a sleepy, picturesque village with an Art Nouveau bandstand, a church that looks like it’s constructed out of icing sugar and egg whites; and beautifully restored traditional architecture. But go there for one of its fiestas and you’ll find yourself [...]

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The Sardinada-or Life on Mars with Sardines

To queue or not to queue, that is the question.
It was around the hour of 9pm and a few dozen bodies had already begun to form a line from the ticket man at the top of the steps on San Telmo to the long bar backed by rows of red hot barbecues laden with smoking [...]

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Santa Blues and the Irish Conquistadores

Beneath the gaze of a shimmering moon, in the shadow of the tower that guards the cross placed in the ground by Spanish Conquistadores and after which the city of Santa Cruz is named, on Thursday night it was the turn of the Irish to conquer the city.
We arrived at the top of the Noria [...]

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Santa Blues 2009 – line up

Well the nights are sultry, the stage is set beneath the ‘flame of the forest’ trees at the foot of the iconic tower of the Church of La Concepción and JC Murphy’s have stocked up on the Guinness. That all means it must be time for the Santa Blues Festival.
This year, instead of spreading the [...]

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Rod Stewart in Tenerife

I wonder if, like me, Rod Stewart ever looks in the mirror of a morning and a line from the immortal ‘Maggie May’ pops into his head:
“The morning sun when it’s in your face really shows your age.”?
May 18th 2009 is the date set for that raspy-throated icon of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Rod Stewart to [...]

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Alternative Tenerife

It never ceases to amaze me how effectively the Tinerfeños manage to safeguard their culture and identity.
Despite 500 years of being at the crossroads between Europe and the Americas and 50 years at the heart of mass tourism, very little of northern European or North American culture has left its mark on this society.
But what’s [...]

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MUECA 2009

Everything about the town felt different.
For one thing it was 10 pm on Saturday night and there wasn’t a space to be found in the vast open-air harbour car park where a thousand cars can comfortably fit. I’d never seen it like this before.
And everywhere I looked there were neo-hippies; handsome bearded men with dreads [...]

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Santa Blues 2009

I’ve just had a tip-off from a comment on ‘Santa Blues’ that The Deans are going to be playing this year’s festival in June 2009. Three young lads from Galway, brothers Gary and Gavin Dean and friend Martin Sheanon, these guys play like veterans of old school Blues and Rock. Gavin Dean’s Stratocaster was clearly [...]

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Carnaval Capers – the final curtain

Saturday 24th February
4pm – closing parade. Another 3 hour standing marathon as the various dancing troupes, floats, Carnaval Queens and multitudinous winners of fancy dress prizes parade through the streets from Costa Martiánez to Castillo San Felipe.
10pm – Everyone’s in fancy dress for the closing party and looking forward to the final blow-out. I’ve opted [...]

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Carnaval Capers – Wild Things

Just arrived back from Plaza del Charco after a brilliant night and still buzzin’. Calle Perdomo, Calle Mequinez and Calle Marina merged into a single dance floor; speakers strung from kiosks at the harbour end of Calle Mequinez blasted out dance music to the thronging masses below. Drag queens danced with DC Comics’ heroes, pirates, [...]

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