This unofficial site features his current and recent events and tours
Review of Tony Hadley meets the Barcelona Jazz Orchestra at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria - 26th February 2009
A show in Gran Canaria with the Barcelona Jazz Orchestra and Tony sounded a good show, since I had seen him twice with this orchestra last summer and a bit of winter sunshine would be good too. We worked out the logistics of getting there and there was a direct flight from Gatwick to Las Palmas, so that made it easy.
My Spanish isn't terribly good - I can just about find my way round a menu and can do the pleasantries, so it was nice that Gema was coming and Wendy decided to come too.
Wendy and I met up with Gema at the airport and it was time to see Tony in another country. We decided to fly on the Wednesday and not leave it to the morning flight on the day of the show. so by the time we got to our hotel it was getting late and time to get a meal and have a reasonably early night.
The weather forecasters had said that we were due rain during our trip, instead of the 20 degrees C and sunny that it usually is. So when we awoke on Thursday morning, we were quite surprised that it was warm and sunny, so after breakfast we decided to walk down the promenade to the venue in the distance and visit the shopping centre near the venue. We bought delicious ice cream from the shopping centre.
We decided to have lunch on our way back to our hotel from the venue, we had just sat down in the cafe when the heavens opened and it started to rain, we found out later that this was the time that Tony's plane had landed as he had not been able to travel direct. We had a lazy afternoon back at the hotel and then it was time to get ready qnd go and meet up with Gema's friends and have a drink with them. it was good that the rain had stopped by this time.
The venue was really nice and modern and was only opened in 1997 you can see photos of it here, We took our seats and waited for the show to start. The show ran all the way through without an interval, with just a short break for the encore.
The orchestra were introduced and they played one song on their own and then it was time for Tony to come on. He came bounding on stage and said 'welcome to London' - his joke about the unseasonal weather in Las Palmas, He also said that he had been to Gran Canaria before but never experienced rain. He also mentioned the view of the sea from the stage.
There were no surprises with the set list, we knew it was a swing show and the set list reflected this. Tony told us that he had been rehearsing with the orchestra all week and the set included more songs than the shows in Spain last summer,
Tony talked between the songs in English as he explained his Spanish was limited to Hola, Gracias, Buenos Noches, Buenos Dias and una cerveza por favor (a beer please!).
The time went so quickly and it was time for the encore and to rock it up a bit. He decided to do 'Its not unusual' and treated us to a bit of a Tom Jones type wiggle.
There had been an arrangement made that all the fans were able to go to the bar near the dressing rooms and meet with Tony. For some fans it had been many years since they last saw him.
It had been a great evening, but I can't believe that the next public show that Tony is doing is not until June and it is in Denmark.
Tony was flying out on an early flight, so next morning we couldn't believe that it was all nice and sunny and the rain had completely disappeared, it seemed that the bad weather had only been there for the time Tony was on the island, we left on an evening flight and arrived back late on Friday.