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Saturday, January 26, 2008
Rubber Soul in Tenerife
Almas de Goma (it means Rubber Soul(s), which fans will recognize as the title of the sixth album by The Beatles, first released in December 1965) play the tasca bar, La Balsa Blues (images | map), Calle Candelaria, 8, in the La Noria area of Tenerife's capital, Santa Cruz, tonight, Saturday, January 26th, from 11.00 p.m.
Entrance Free. (And, you'd almost think you were back in The Cavern!)
It's one of those funny coincidences, but I accidentally stumbled across the article about this tribute band, Cuatro chicos que cantan y visten como The Beatles, in Tenerife daily, La Opinión, just after I'd read Joe Cawley's post about the Elton John concert and how one of the rumours floating around on the south of the island, was that it might have been an impersonator.
An old cynic I may be (funny how Tenerife does that to you), but that's one thing I didn't think (well, not once Elton's own site confirmed the gig :-)
Not unsurprisingly though, Mike and Pat from Wolverhampton, who went to see Elton John in Tenerife this week, found that, "Back home in blighty no one believed us, they thought we had seen a tribute act!"
True, the south of Tenerife has plenty of them, even Beatles tribute acts. The Plethora of Presleys - I've been to an event in a south Tenerife bar when there were no less than 4 Elvises in the same room - has become a bit of a joke. Seems even funnier when they speak in a British regional accent too.
Then again, I seriously doubt that the real Gloria Estefan ever slipped slightly blue and otherwise politically incorrect jokes between her songs - in a Brummie accent - as my best mate, Michaela Sydney did with her tribute act here.
(She used to tell me that everything I sing "sounded just like it would have sounded if Tina Turner had sung it", but that's a whole other story.)
The obvious reason why the island has so many tribute acts is because it makes for easier marketing. How else can you attract the attention of a passing punters and explain what a show is going to be about in just two words or less?
Answer: You don't, you let the already well-known name explain it for you.
This is something that artists - some of them extremely talented and capable of varied repertoires - learned a long time ago. If you want to get booked on the cabaret circuit here, you need to be "somebody" people recognize.
It shouldn't have, but it surprised me that this same phenomenon had spread to the "real life" part of the island. But if a Yorkshire Elvis Presley kinda screwed with my perceptions, then, obviously, I had not contemplated the idea of a chicarrero Paul McCartney or a John Lennon canario. But why not?
Cuatro chicos que cantan y visten como The Beatles
