Free live music and stuff in Las Palmas, June 2026

Some stuff that we saw in June.

• 5 June: «Match de impro» @ Teatro Guiniguada, Plaza F. Mesa de León, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
  The second (of three) performances by Escuela Vives Impro lead by Romina Vives. Presented as a match between two teams who had to improvise their lines according to the words or phrases provided by the audience and randomly selected from the box. On this occasion, the green team won. The Saturday show was supposed to be a final (that is, a competition between the winners of the previous two) but I went to see Mestizo in Parque Doramas. Part of VII Muestra de Teatro no profesional.

  

• 6 June: Mestizo @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas
  Feauturing Danny Martínez (guitar), Pedro Izquierdo (timple), Marcel Montcourt (cuatro venezolano), Samuel Ortiz (clarinet, vocals), Kiko González (percussion), Luis Rivero (bass), Adrián Brito (vocals) and Claudia Álamo (vocals).

  

From 12 to 28 June our city celebrated its Fiestas Fundacionales. Here are some events we’ve attended:

• 12 June: «Pangea» @ Castillo de la Luz, Calle Juan Rejón
  A work by the Galician composer, musicologist, luthier and multi-instrumentalist Abraham Cupeiro (flutes, horns, bagpipes, carnyx) performed by the author and La Banda Sinfónica Municipal de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria conducted by Juan Roda Sapiña.

  

• 13 June: «60 años de soul en el Atlántico» @ Plaza de Santa Ana
  The City Dock Band featuring Cristina Ramos paid a tribute to Los Canarios and American soul artists. With guest appearance of Teddy Bautista (via video) and Toba.

  

• 14 June: «Música en el corazón de Vegueta» @ various locations
  This time, the traditional Vegueta festival took place on Sunday morning. I liked this arrangement better than usual Saturday evening one. This is what we’ve seen (the full programme is available here):
  • Archinautas @ Colegio de Abogados
  • Súbito Koral @ Casas Consistoriales
  • La Musicleta @ Plaza del Pilar Nuevo
  • Barrio de Tango @ Plaza de San Agustín
  • Son x Tres @ Plaza de la Real Sociedad Económica Amigos del País
  As an extra bonus, in the patios of Vegueta the visitors were supplied with Tirma chocolate bars.

  

• 17 June: Mingo Quintana and José Artiles @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles, Calle Benito Pérez Galdós 4,
  A double bill from the cycle 12 noches de autor.

  

• 19 June: Performance «Cuerpo a tinta» @ Centro de Artes Plásticas, Calle Colón, 8
  A result of the workshop taught by Sandra March, this perfomance complemented the exhibition Engravers for Peace (see below).

  

• 19 June: «La costa de los cantares» @ Plaza de Santa Ana
  Olga Cerpa & Mestisay with guest singer Eneida Marta and invited artists Ricardo Campos (bass) and Cristiano Pinto (guitar).

  

And exhibitions:

• 25 February — 28 June: «Alma de nacar» @ Casa de Colón, Calle Colón, 1
  Presenting enconchados created in Mexico in the 17th and 18th centuries.

  

• 4 June — 3 July: «Grabadores por la Paz» @ Centro de Artes Plásticas
  The collective exhibition Engravers for Peace, coordinated by the Canarian-Palestinian artist Fátima Suleimán Afonso, brings together creations of some 60 artists from different countries, including a work by Tamara.

  

Goodbye, June, I’ll miss you.

All You Need Is Love

by The Beatles

— Will that do? ——— Oh yeah, and The Beatles.
— The Beatles, said Jimmy.
— Money for jam, said Joey The Lips. — ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE —— DOO DUH DOO DUH DOO.
— Was tha’ you?
— Indeed it was me, Brother. Five pounds, three and sixpence. A fair whack in those days. ——— I couldn’t stand Paul, couldn’t take to him. I was up on the roof for Let It Be. But I stayed well back. I’m not very photogenic Brother. I take a shocking photograph.

Roddy Doyle, The Commitments

Hey, it’s official:

Now, in a major milestone for the celebration, Apple Corps Ltd, the company founded by The Beatles to manage their creative and business ventures, has formally acknowledged Global Beatles Day.

And more:

On 25th June, alongside online and in-person events around the world that celebrate the band, The Beatles will also release a colourised version of their BBC Our World performance of “All You Need Is Love” for free on YouTube. The first time the iconic performance has been made available online, it will celebrate the iconic performance’s anniversary, mark Global Beatles Day, and give fans around the world the chance to relive that spectacular, global moment from 1967 and share their reaction in the live chat.

“The first time”, really? I’ve seen it before, black and white as well as “colourised” (although I prefer the B&W version). For free.

But of course I’ll be watching it anyway, in a hope to catch a glimpse of Joey The Lips Fagan playin’ DOO DUH DOO DUH DOO on his Gina.

Murder on the Orient Express

a film by Sidney Lumet
based on a novel by Agatha Christie

Curiously, it took exactly forty years from the publication of Christie’s classic novel to make its first adaptation. Of the three films from the cycle Nada es lo que parece, the last one was the one I liked the least. I found its all-star cast including Ingrid Bergman, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Sean Connery, Anthony Perkins and Vanessa Redgrave rather underwhelming, while Albert Finney portrayed the most annoying Poirot I’ve seen. It is its few comic moments that make this grandiose movie actually enjoyable.

According to Wikipedia,

Christie, who died fourteen months after the release of the film, stated that Murder on the Orient Express and Witness for the Prosecution were the only movie adaptations of her books that she liked although she expressed disappointment with Poirot’s moustache.

Carol

a film by Todd Haynes
based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith
screenplay by Phyllis Nagy

There’s not an ounce of guilt, there’s not an ounce of regret, over the nature of their attraction for each other. I also found Highsmith’s notions of what makes a good mother to be quite radical — the choices that people have to make in order to make the lives of their children better <in 1952> seemed really fresh, and radical. And still do, to this day, actually.

Phyllis Nagy (2015)

A beautifully atmospheric and stylish drama starring Cate Blanchett as Carol and Rooney Mara as Therese. According to Wikipedia, it took about 19 years to make this movie (1996 through 2015) while actual “filming was completed after 34 days”; it was shot on Super 16 mm film.

Carol continues the cycle Diversidad, Igualdad y Cultura by Filmoteca Canaria and Instituto Canario de Desarrollo Cultural.

Witness for the Prosecution

a film by Billy Wilder
based on a play by Agatha Christie

Another first — this time, the first film adaptation of Christie’s 1953 play. Compared to last week’s feature, Witness for the Prosecution offers much more mystery, even less noir, and plenty of comedy, albeit of a different kind. Of the three main stars, Tyrone Power is unimpressive, Marlene Dietrich is interesting enough, and Charles Laughton is truly splendid. Una O’Connor is great as a 1957 version of Mrs Doyle (eggbeater = Teamaster), and Elsa Lanchester — by then, a spouse of Laughton for nearly three decades — shines as Miss Plimsoll.

Testigo de cargo continues the cycle Nada es lo que parece. 50 años sin Agatha Christie.

Katanazo al amor romántico

by Raquel Riba Rossy

Didn’t I tell you that Lola’s katana won’t stay in its cabinet for long? Well, it depends what one means for “long”. Five years including pandemic could be an awfully long time. By 2023, Lola was back with the first part of Katanazo. In the 2026 follow-up, the sword was finally used to Lola’s (and my) satisfaction.

Katanazo is perhaps the darkest of Lola Vendetta comics. First introduced in Una Habitación Propia, Death, God and Pepito the dog return to provide much-needed comic relief. No spoilers but look for those QR codes!

Not a Pretty Picture

a film by Martha Coolidge

In 1962, when she was 16, Martha Coolidge was date raped by an older student of the same high school. Recreating the circumstances of the director’s ordeal, this 1976 docudrama is, just as its name suggests, not a pretty picture. Molly Haskell wrote in 2024:

Given the rise in reported incidents of rape and the omnipresence of the subject across social media in the intervening years, you’d think Not a Pretty Picture would have lost its power to shock. It hasn’t. Coolidge’s seminal film is a fascinating window onto another time, one that we would like to think of as kinder and gentler, but alas, Not a Pretty Picture also seems horribly contemporary, shudder-inducing in its relevance...

So it is. Michele Manenti, herself a rape survivor, plays Martha at 16. Jim Carrington is scarily convincing as Curly the rapist. But there’s light too. Lot of it is provided by Martha’s best friend, Anne Mundstuk, as herself.

This film, Coolidge’s debut feature, was shown as part of the cycle Diversidad, Igualdad y Cultura by Filmoteca Canaria and Instituto Canario de Desarrollo Cultural.