Kaos Urbano & A Tercio Pelao

Rock City was already sweating through its own concrete pores before the first roadie had even considered touching a guitar cable. The Valencian fortress in Burjassot — a sanctuary where distortion is a sacrament and volume a misunderstood political ideology — was sold out before the flier ink had even dried. The line wrapped around the building like some Kafkaesque conga of leather jackets, bomber coats, bootleg denim and suspiciously cheap beer, forming what looked like a municipal art installation dedicated to tinnitus, nicotine withdrawals, and the death of polite society.

Inside, the place flexed its usual voodoo: a stage built for maximum combustion, acoustics tighter than a customs officer at the airport, sightlines engineered for tribal congress, and that perverse architectural magic that makes 1,200 people feel like they’re sharing a common bloodstream — equal parts adrenaline, ethanol, and civic restlessness.

Benimaclet’s own A Tercio Pelao took the stage like a Molotov demonstration disguised as an opening set. Since 2016they’ve been refining their craft — a serrated cocktail of Oi!, punk rock, barroom lament, working-class agitation, and the kind of street-worn anthemics produced only by neighborhoods with more bars than dentists.

There was no foreplay. They just pulled the pin and rolled the grenade into the audience. The pit opened like a sinkhole and the boots got to work. Fists rose, elbows flew, and the chorus replies were so unanimous you’d think Valencia had been secretly running civic rehearsals outside for weeks. By the midpoint, the crowd was fully mobilized — sweat, beer, and righteous noise ricocheting off the walls like ballistic optimism. Calling them a warm-up act would be like calling a bar fight a “minor disagreement.”

This was recruitment.

Then the main artillery: Kaos Urbano, celebrating 30 years of refusing to mellow, compromise, or behave like respectable adults. Born in Alcobendas in 1994, they emerged from the old socio-political trenches — football terraces, barrio politics, anti-fascist street culture, and the uneasy cultural hangover of a country figuring out what the hell to do with its own skeletons.

Most bands get older and either dissolve, domesticate, or retreat into nostalgia. Kaos Urbano kept the original voltage pumping — serrated guitars, riot-police drums, and lyrics barked like sworn testimony from a witness who knows the judge can’t handle the truth.

Rock City exploded the second they appeared — a writhing cross-generational soup of scarred veterans and fresh recruits, all united in civic disobedience set to 4/4 time.

The atmosphere wasn’t metaphorical chaos. It was literal chaos — borderline medical, faintly illegal, and unquestionably communal. Pits formed, dissolved, and re-formed like unstable political alliances. Every chorus became a referendum. Kaos Urbano never wrote songs for bystanders; they wrote field manuals for participation. Rock City swallowed them whole and burped smoke rings.

The closing number detonated with the confidence of a prison break, and then came the moment of sacramental lunacy: the guitarist leapt into the crowd while still playing, an act that should require insurance waivers, religious blessing, and maybe a neurosurgeon on standby. The crowd carried him like stolen evidence, hands high, beer raining, phones waving, chaos achieving something close to civic elegance. The band never stopped — as if this sort of thing happens every Thursday between laundry and tax obligations.

Thirty years of Kaos Urbano refusing to behave, neatly summarized in one airborne guitar solo.

When the lights finally came up, the room reeked of sweat, beer foam, burnt tobacco, leather, and triumph. Rock City once again proved why it remains one of Spain’s most effective laboratories for loud, sweaty democracy — packed to capacity, vibrating with conspiracy-level energy, and very much alive.

Punk hasn’t died. It hasn’t even slowed down. It simply refuses to leave the building so long as there are still people who need it and judging by Rock City, there are a hell of a lot of people who still need it!

Words and photos: Rhyan Paul