Rock Island Bar: My Story

Rock Island Bar is the longest-running live music venue in Corralejo, Fuerteventura, featuring the best live acoustic music you’ll ever hear. It also changed my life.

I first read about Rock Island Bar on my first (and only) holiday to the popular canary island. It must’ve been around 2005. A flyer left by the travel company at the hotel I was staying at, listing things to do including ‘The D&G Show’, ‘Live at Rock Island Bar’, and intriguingly…

No Cheese!

Rock Island Bar: First Impressions

I took the block of cheese with a stop sign over it meant none of your backing tracks, karaoke, or other nonsense, so the plan that night was to check the place out.

Rock Island Bar is situated just off the main Corralejo strip, in a dusty backstreet. Blink and you’ll miss it, but even before I entered I felt a buzz about this gem of a venue on the corner as I spotted guitars hung on the wall through its single window.

On entering the cozy establishment it seems too small to be practical, with the short visit to the bar seeming to get in everyone’s way, but then you look around and every inch looks to have a purpose, be it practical or decorative. It’s obviously been cared for and loved over many years.

The bar itself takes up almost one wall, opposite that, the fascia of a real VW camper van no less, adorned with musical chintz and memorabilia, and absolutely complementing the chilled out, hippy traveler campfire vibe of the place. To the left is the stage area, the beating heart. Cluttered to the untrained eye, but actually a dream setup for any musician, with the sound-system, guitars, piano, mics, and even a web-cam all set up and ready to go at the drop of a hat.

Facing the stage area was as much seating as they could muster, including intimate booths at the back complete with lampshades., At the front, a really annoying support beam that just always got in everyone’s way.

Rock Island Bar: Some background

2020 marks 30 years since husband and wife owners Gary and Mandy realized their dream of opening the Rock Island Bar (Formerly ‘Cocktails and Dreams’). To paraphrase Gary, he began the journey when he was 21 and has stayed that age ever since!

Mandy looks after the day to day running of the bar, and from what I can tell, has a constant welcoming smile, making you feel instantly at ease.

Gary, it has to be said, has the perfect setup. Not only is he the owner (and occasional barman) of a fantastic place on an idyllic island he now calls home, but also, as the in-house bass player, one-half of pretty much every act that graces the stage, which at the time was almost every night of the week.

So there it was, the green-eyed-monster was the first of many telling impressions Rock Island Bar made on me. Imagine that eh? Emigrating to Fuerteventura with your wife, spending your days running your own bar and your nights drinking, socializing, and playing music?

The D&G Show

And so, with a Cerveza in hand. It was time to settle down to the D&G show, which, as it turns out was Darren Hill on acoustic guitar and Gary on bass. The camaraderie between the two was infectious with the audience, making for an instantly warm, lively, atmosphere. An acoustic guitar and a bass would leave out a lot of gaps, you would have thought, but with this setup, you sort of fill in those missing rhythmic parts in your own head, so to speak, to the point where you forget their ommission.

Darren, although a seasoned guitar player and vocalist also had a really endearing David Brent style humour and vibe. Whether that was intentional or not, one number that really made me take him seriously was when he switched from his Ovation electro-acoustic over to the piano, belting out one of my favourite songs at the time Somewhere only we Know by Keane. It’s those moments, when you’re on holiday and someone plays your favourite song, that really stick in the mind. With that and the memorable I’ll be Your Baby Tonight still ringing in my ears, I left knowing Rock Island would be my entertainment for the rest of the holiday.

At the weekend, the D&G show gained a member and became A.R.S.E. if I remember rightly. This time was just a passing visit, but I needed to stay for one song, in particular, Losing My Religion, complete with mandolin. The first I’d seen it played live, and never bettered.

Audience Participation

What was so great about the show was not just the quality of the music, but also the interaction with the audience and the generally happy, relaxed vibe, you really did feel part of the show. One night a few punters were getting up and playing one or two numbers in between sets. After watching for a while, I put my name forward and before I knew it I was up on stage in the full glare of the audience. I played it safe with Wonderful Tonight. Too safe maybe, but as I gladly took up the encore I decided to give them something they’d never heard before, my own original song Dance Right Through The Night. The reception I got took me completely by surprise, much better than the first song and an emotional, humbling confirmation that maybe I could actually write a decent song.

The night Rock Island Bar changed my life

All performers got a free beer, but as I approached the bar the amount of comments I got about my performance was really touching. I got chatting to one guy in particular, a regular Corralejo ex-pat and a friend of the staff. We discussed everything from music to, well, life. As the show drew to a close we basically went out clubbing.

Having a local as a drinking partner certainly had its advantages. He knew all the best venues, and as the night wore on our group of two gathered various local bar staff and performers from around the area. That night was both an eye-opener and the final straw for me. I’d missed out on this, the simple act of having a good time, having fun! I needed to change my situation at home, but more than that, to reset, to get away from England itself. It’s at this point Goa was suggested to me for the first time, and the rest, as they say, is history. The Goa trip, including a book Goa: A Lesson in Life, the perfect woman, a happy marriage, three beautiful children, and finally this very blog all followed, and I guess all that wouldn’t have happened had I never visited Rock Island Bar in the first place!

Revisiting Rock Island Bar and the new D&G.

Sadly I never did, but in the years that followed, I made do with live shows via webcam, which then became zoom, from the comfort of my own home. Darren had ventured onto pastures new so the new ‘D’ of the D&G show became Dave Hedley, a brilliant guitarist with the uncanny ability to play electric-style lead lines, seemingly effortlessly on the acoustic. No mean feat. It wasn’t the same though, some of the magic was lost, so I parked my favourite live music venue for a while, right up until COVID arrived.

Lockdown at the Rock Island Bar

Sadly, COVID has brought many a live music venue to its knees, so in 2020 I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane and see how the place was doing. It turns out they’ve adapted to the situation by performing at least a weekly live show via zoom. D&G is still the headline act, with Dave Hedley, it has to be said, taking live acoustic music to a whole new level. Not only is his playing of the highest order, both technically, tonally (with his beautiful Gibson Songwriter) and in his phrasing, but, man alive, what a voice! One minute it’s Metallica, next it’s Chris Rea, next it’s Iron Maiden, next it’s 10cc, next it’s funk, next it’s Chris Isaacs. There’s not a lot this guy can’t sing, and he excels at them all with unbridled power all the way down to a whisper. Darren who?

Someone was kind enough to capture a moment of pure magic which serves as a great example. The phrasing on this solo beggars belief.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=630379337897630

Throughout all these years, of course, providing the reliably solid bass lines and backing vocals, has been Gary, and again there’s pretty much nothing he can’t play. He’s providing the bridge between what would be a sparse acoustic set and a full band, but at times he tastefully ventures up the fretboard into the musical stratosphere to lift the song just when it needs it. This is a guy that’s played bass pretty much every day for over 30 years and live for a good portion of that, and it’s obvious to everyone that he’s loved every minute.

Putting two seasoned musicians of this calibre together creates many a stand-out moment in the course of a show. Highlights? Dave’s looper adding layers to the mix, swapping acoustic/bass solos in the same song, Gary’s piano/double bass excursions, the vocal harmonies. Too many to mention really.

Rock Island Bar needs YOU!

It never went away really, but this year I’ve become a regular again, which has been one of the few positives from a terrible year. I’m really sorry what COVID has done to this and many venues, so the least I can do is put the word out for a fantastic live music venue and act any music fan should check out. Take it from me, their talent deserves your ear.

Through the magic of Zoom, the D&G show and the Rock Island Bar experience is accessible to anyone, anywhere. Visit their Facebook page for all the latest info on upcoming gigs.

https://www.facebook.com/rockislandbar/

Hope you enjoy the show and hope to see you there! Let me know what you think in the comments below.

I’ve come full circle. Great to see you again Rock Island Bar!