Lily Allen and Ibiza have history. When she was 16 she was living alone in a hostel in San Antonio, and in her own words, “working for a record shop called Plastik Fantastic and selling ecstasy tablets.” This is the kind of truth you’ll not get from most of today’s PR savvy and cloned pop stars. Lily Allen is certainly not one of them.
Tonight’s packed out headline show at the lush outside surroundings of the Ibiza Rocks Hotel (just a stones throw away from that hostel she used to live in) is the culmination of a career that has included plenty of hit records, awards and controversy along the way. Like many young Brits, Lily came to Ibiza as a teenager to enjoy what Ibiza had to offer, and it was a chance meeting here with George Lamb, who then became her manager, that started the ball rolling on her music career, the two of them working together on Lily´s first hit album, Alright Still.
Bipolar Sunshine warmed up for Lily as the sun went down, playing a nice, melodic set with the likes of Where Did The Love Go and Love More Worry. There was then a 45 minute interlude where Ibiza Rocks resident DJ Patrick Nazemi got the crowd pumped up with a mixture of house music, classics and acapellas.
Just before Lily´s arrival onto the stage, there was a large influx of workers into the venue, who had presumably only just finished work, or were skiving off their job for the 90 minutes that Lily was set to play. She came on stage to a rapture of applause and started with LDN – Sun Is In The Sky, before telling everyone that she was so glad to be a part of Ibiza Rocks 2014. She then sang Fuck You, Hard Out Here and Smile – all big tracks that went down a storm. Lily looked great, and her voice was spot on too, despite claiming technical issues were holding back her performance. She said she was drinking a chamomile tea, which received a few boos, until she said it had vodka in, which then lead to an applause.
Next came tracks Our Time from her latest album Sheezus, It´s Not Fair and her beautiful version of Keane´s Somewhere Only We Know – of John Lewis advert fame and Christmas 2013 number 1.
Lily then exclaimed, “I fucking love Ibiza!” and ended on massive crowd favourite The Fear. Tonight at Ibiza RocksLily had the time of her life on stage – she exuded confidence and was in her element. It was the kind of excellent gig you wanted to last all night.
Tonight was a roaring success, and with the likes of Jake Bugg, Ed Sheeran, Bastille, Kaiser Chiefs and The Kooks still to play this summer, it looks like being another storming summer for Ibiza Rocks.