Guess the song

One of the things we love in life is listening to live music. We are lucky that at home, on the island, there’s lots of opportunities to listen to live acts in bars and we often find ourselves staying much later than planned because the entertainment is so good. 

Clearly Benidorm is known for its ‘shows’ many of which we would never entertain, some we walk past and give each other that look - you know, the one, “are they really that bad?” but at other times we love what we hear and head on in for a fabulous evening of entertainment. 

So far (as I write this) we have had two evenings of live music. I’m wondering how to describe them to you. Sublime to ridiculous, chalk and cheese, quality vs quantity. All of these probably apply!

Our first evening of live entertainment was fabulous. Having walked into town for dinner, stumbling across one of the best Indian restaurants we have eaten at (the naan bread was by far the best ever), we headed to one of the local hotel bars.  Ian has been friends with Jamie and Justin for (a few) decades, they live locally and are professional singers. When we were here 2 years ago we went along to say hello and they were just as fabulous then as Ian had told me they would be, so we got in touch once again and popped along to where they were working.

Singing for a living is really hard work and they certainly earn their wages! 2 hours of non stop fabulous songs, classics you can’t help but sing along to, some more modern songs for the younger audience members and a thoroughly enjoyable evening. If you are ever in this area, you must look them up - They are on Facebook and are the Timewarp Duo.

Our second live music experience couldn’t be more different! We’d seen that there was entertainment at the campsite a few times a week, so decided to give it a try. We’d really enjoyed our Sunday lunch so decided to have our evening meal in the club house and try out the entertainment. Dinner was tasty and good value, the evening was starting well.

As the entertainment time approached the clubhouse filled up, regulars greeted each other, pulled tables together and the excitement began to build. Two young Spanish men arrived and began unpacking bongo drums and a trumpet. This was going to go one of two ways. Whichever it was, it wasn’t going to be subtle.

As the music began we almost jumped out of our seats spilling precious drops of  wine. We now knew it was going to be loud! Oh my! Was it loud! We can’t fault the enthusiasm of the entertainers, and I admit we did have a giggle and several ‘looks’ were exchanged.

Have you ever heard Red, Red wine to a salsa beat? A Latin rhythm Sweet Caroline? We have! It wasn't a good experience! The duo were giving it great gusto, and the audience possibly not as discerning as they might be. Dancing commenced, whoops of approval exclaimed. The bongo drums were beaten (unusually to an entirely different beat to the backing track) and the singing was… interesting. We played guess the song as the intro was played (every single song with a Latin beat), occasionally we were able to identify it, often we were not. As a chorus arrived we usually managed to work it out by listening really hard to the words - whilst desperately trying to ignore the interesting  melody and rhythm choices made by the duo. Ian getting it correct more often than me (no change there). He sometimes tried to identify the song to me by singing it  - I often know the song, but not the name of the song or the singer. However this proved to be a challenge too far when competing with the Spanish take on classic rock and pop songs. Even Ian, with his ability to sing brilliantly didn't always help me in this challenging environment.

I think my favourite moment was when a young Irish man started live streaming the duo to his mum, whilst dancing, whooping, and generally taking over the dancefloor. Mum clearly enjoyed the entertainment as he appeared to livestream the rest of the night, the lead singer calling him up on stage to sing with him and  waving at mum down the phone.

Fortunately it was a short set of an hour and a half and before we were totally deafened we were able to agree we are definitely fans of quality over quantity, sublime over ridiculous and cheese, not chalk! Justin, Jamie as you know, we will be back. The question is, will we brave another club night entertainment on the site? What do you think? Should we?