Love To Rock

2 hours ago

4 min read

Love To Rock 2026 had one hell of an opening act, and it wasn’t a band. It was the weather.

With Valencia under an orange weather alert and torrential rain threatening to turn La Marina into something resembling a particularly soggy swimming pool, Friday’s entire festival programme was cancelled. Safety had to come first, even if that meant pulling the plug on a day that was supposed to feature Lori Meyers, Iván Ferreiro, Ginebras and a whole load of indie firepower.

For a festival, that’s the sort of problem that can knock the wind out of the sails before the first guitar is plugged in. Love To Rock, however, wasn’t going to let the weekend disappear without a fight.

Saturday was completely reworked, with the organisation opening the gates at 10:30 and reshuffling the programme to bring some of Friday’s casualties into the surviving day. Most notably, Lori Meyers were moved onto the Mainstage at 13:30, giving fans who had watched their Friday plans disappear into the weather a second chance.

And what followed was one hell of a comeback. By the time the music got properly underway, La Marina was buzzing. The atmosphere had that particular Love To Rock quality: relaxed, friendly, slightly chaotic around the edges and absolutely committed to having a bloody good time. Rather than feeling like a festival desperately trying to make up for lost ground, Saturday quickly became its own beast.

The setting helps enormously. La Marina is made for this kind of event, with the Mediterranean sitting just beyond the festival site and enough space to wander between stages, bars, food and the various pockets of activity without feeling like you're trapped in a human cattle grid.

And Love To Rock understands that a modern festival doesn't have to mean spending eight hours standing in front of one stage. Three musical areas kept the day moving, with the Mainstage handling the big guns while La Pèrgola provided another stream of live action and Love To Food brought together music, chefs, drinks and the inevitable festival grazing.

Lori Meyers getting their Saturday morning resurrection was one of the weekend's great moments, but the bill kept delivering. Mala Gestión, Depedro, Sanguijuelas del Guadiana, La M.O.D.A. and León Benavente took over the Mainstage as the day rolled towards night, while Los Punsetes, Vera Fauna, Parquesvr, Los Invaders and Grande Amore kept La Pèrgola moving.

And that's where Love To Rock really scores. It's not simply about throwing a bunch of names onto a poster and hoping people turn up. It's about creating a place where people actually want to spend the entire day. You could bounce between stages, grab something to eat, catch a DJ set, bump into friends, discover a band you'd never previously heard of and then find yourself back in front of a big stage when the next favourite came on.

There was a genuine sense of community running through the place.

Families wandered around. Groups of mates claimed their favourite corners. Old-school indie heads rubbed shoulders with younger festival-goers. People danced. People drank. People ate. People wandered. And, crucially, people looked like they were enjoying themselves. That might sound like a fairly basic requirement for a festival, but it's surprisingly easy to get wrong. Love To Rock gets it right.

The food side of the festival deserves a mention too. Love To Food has become an important part of the identity rather than some glorified collection of burger vans shoved behind a fence. The combination of live cooking, quality food, drinks and music gives the whole thing a slightly more grown-up feel without sucking the fun out of it.

And then there were the DJs, filling the gaps between the live sets and keeping the place moving long after the sun had started disappearing.

By the time La M.O.D.A. and León Benavente hit the Mainstage, the festival had effectively shrugged off Friday's cancellation and got on with what it came to do: put a bloody great soundtrack underneath a Saturday in Valencia.

That's probably the best way to judge Love To Rock 2026. Was it the weekend the organisers originally planned?

No. Was losing Friday a massive blow for artists, fans, crews and everyone involved? Absolutely. But did the festival recover? Like a bastard!

Saturday demonstrated exactly why Love To Rock has carved out its place in Valencia's increasingly crowded festival calendar. The location is superb, the format works, the food is strong, the programming crosses generations without feeling forced and, most importantly, the crowd brings the right energy.

There was no sense of everyone sitting around mourning the Friday that never happened. Instead, Valencia turned up, the music started, the beers flowed, the sun eventually behaved itself and Love To Rock got on with the fucking job.

Sometimes festivals are judged by how spectacularly everything goes right. Others are judged by what happens when everything goes spectacularly wrong. Love To Rock 2026 had the weather throw the first punch. On Saturday, it punched back!

Words and photos: Rhyan Paul