Giles Brown
The Good…
I finally managed to make up to the Starlite Festival this year. When Marbella Town Hall first announced that they were going to stage events in the abandoned quarry behind the exclusive Sierra Blanca urbanisation, I must admit that I sniffed heartily. It’ll never work, I thought to myself. The place hasn’t been used for events since the 70s. They couldn’t even get the concerts on the Pinillo beach right (everybody moved the plastic seats around at the Joaquin Cortes concerts, the seating wasn’t raised so that you couldn’t see the dancer’s feet, the facilities were basic at best and halfway through the concert the neighbouring beach club decided to start letting off fireworks…)
So it was with more than a little trepidation that I rocked up to see Paco de Lucia last month. But for once in Marbella, everything worked. The press passes were collected without hassle, a fleet of minibuses whisked us up to the venue and once there there was an exhaustive selection of bars to choose from for that all important pre concert tipple. And as I watched the legendary guitarist begin, with the moon glinting down upon the audience who were more than comfortably seated, I reflected that when Marbella gets it right it really is a wonderful place to live
The Bad
I read with disgust about the two recent attacks on people out partying in Marbella. One left a 15-year-old girl permanently blinded in one eye after she was hit in the face by a thug wielding a 3 litre vodka bottle outside the “exclusive” Olivie Valere nightclub and in the second a young man was knocked unconscious and suffered a broken jaw at a champagne spray party at the Ocean Club. In the later case the security threw the aggressor out while in the blinding case security were unable to stop the attacker leaving. Which begs the question – what is the point of having bouncers if they don’t detain these thugs until the police arrive?
And the downright Ugly…
So another summer has come to an end on the coast. We may not have had the promised visits of Brad and Angela or even gorgeous George Clooney, but we did have the normal bunch of Premiership footballers, a couple of the TOWIE regulars and that girl from the Apprentice who has an, ahem, “colourful” past. I feel in the celeb category we were somewhat shortchanged…
