Fancy going to a festival without knowing who you're going to see? Of course you do. Well, apparently you do, because A-BANDA has already sold out its first batch of tickets without revealing a single name on the bill. Taking over La Pèrgola at La Marina de València on November 14, A-BANDA is doing something increasingly rare in modern music: asking people to trust their instincts rather than spending three weeks scrolling through an Instagram announcement trying to decide whether a band is worth €8. The first promotional tickets were snapped up despite the fact that the organisers have revealed absolutely nothing about the line-up. Not one band. Not one singer. Not even a suspiciously cropped photograph of someone's ankle. Now the second batch has gone on sale at €10, and the rules remain exactly the same. It is still promotional pricing, it is still a blind purchase and, yes, the line-up definitely exists. You're just not allowed to see it yet. There is something rather refreshing about the whole thing. A-BANDA isn't selling itself around one enormous headline name, a nostalgia act or a festival full of artists you've already seen seventeen times. Instead, the idea is to point the spotlight towards what is happening underneath the surface of the indie, pop and rock scenes, with emerging talent and artists who may currently be the sort of names you have to explain to your mates but could soon become considerably harder to get tickets for. And that is where the gamble gets interesting. Normally, buying a festival ticket is an exercise in research. You check the line-up, listen to a few tracks, look at the running order, investigate whether the band's singer has a history of throwing drinks at photographers and eventually decide whether the whole thing is worth your money. A-BANDA has removed the research phase completely and replaced it with a slightly more dangerous proposition: trust us. For a city with a music scene as restless as Valencia's, that approach makes a certain amount of sense. New bands are appearing everywhere, venues are continuing to push emerging artists and audiences are constantly being given opportunities to discover something before it becomes obvious to everyone else. A-BANDA appears to be leaning directly into that culture of discovery rather than pretending the next big thing can always be identified six months in advance by an algorithm. The venue certainly gives it the right setting. La Pèrgola sits at La Marina de València, which means that on November 14 the whole thing will unfold against one of the city's most recognisable waterfront backdrops, running from 6pm until 1am. Seven hours of indie, pop and rock with the identity of the performers kept under wraps is either a brilliant way to discover new music or an elaborate social experiment designed to see how many Valencians will hand over €10 without asking questions. Judging by the first ticket release, quite a lot. And perhaps that is the most interesting part of A-BANDA. The organisers aren't simply keeping the line-up secret for the sake of creating another promotional countdown. They are deliberately putting discovery back at the centre of the experience. No advance judgement based on genre tags, Spotify numbers, TikTok followers or whether somebody's press photo makes them look sufficiently tortured. You turn up, the bands play and you find out whether you've just discovered your next favourite act. The first €8 tickets are already gone, so if you're still willing to roll the musical dice, the next batch is €10. You still won't know who you're buying a ticket to see, but apparently that is exactly the point. A-BANDA arrives at La Pèrgola on November 14 from 6pm until 1am. The line-up remains secret. The ticket exists. The bands exist. Your curiosity is now officially worth €10. And frankly, after years of being told exactly what we're supposed to be excited about, it might be quite fun to walk into a gig and find out for ourselves. For tickets and more information: La Pèrgola

Arrows in Action have never sounded particularly interested in making themselves smaller, quieter or more polite, so ‘SHUT UP’ feels like a fairly natural next step for the Nashville trio. Released on September 18, the new single takes the band's familiar alternative-rock foundations and pushes them further towards the pop end of the spectrum, delivering a big, instantly accessible track that knows exactly what it wants to do and gets on with doing it. Built around chunky guitar riffs, a driving rhythm section and a chorus that is clearly designed to lodge itself somewhere deep inside your head, ‘SHUT UP’ has plenty of the widescreen energy that has become central to Arrows in Action's sound. There is a polished quality to the production, but the guitars keep enough weight in the mix to stop the song drifting into completely sugar-coated pop territory. It is rock music with its sleeves rolled up, but it knows that a great chorus can sometimes be more dangerous than a great riff. Lyrically, the song takes aim at the expectations that come with constantly being told to be nicer, quieter and more accommodating. Rather than treating that pressure as something to quietly endure, Arrows in Action flip the whole idea around and turn it into a celebration of self-confidence. The title pretty much gives away the attitude, but the track avoids becoming a two-minute tantrum. There is humour in the idea as well as defiance, particularly in the band's explanation that they were repeatedly told they were "too nice" and responded by writing a song called ‘SHUT UP’. Photo: Kelsey Runge That sense of personality is important because Arrows in Action are operating in a crowded corner of modern rock where polished production, huge choruses and emotionally direct songwriting have become almost standard equipment. The difference here is that they understand how to make those ingredients feel energetic rather than mechanical. Victor Viramontes-Pattison's vocals sit comfortably between melodic pop-rock and something more muscular, while Matthew Fowler's guitars provide the track with enough bite to keep things moving. Jesse Frimmel's drumming supplies the forward momentum, giving the whole thing a sense that it is permanently leaning into the next section. The song also arrives at an interesting point in the band's development. Formed in 2017, Arrows in Action have built their audience through a combination of independent releases, relentless touring and songs such as ‘Cheekbones’ that have found a life of their own with fans. Their latest album, I Think I've Heard This Before, expands on the world established by I Think I've Been Here Before, adding four tracks that continue the band's fascination with heartbreak, nostalgia and reinvention. ‘SHUT UP’ feels like another piece of that evolution, but with considerably more attitude. And the timing makes sense. Arrows in Action are currently deep into their biggest headline run yet, with dates across North America including sold-out shows in Denver, Portland, Seattle and San Francisco, alongside an appearance at Louder Than Life. After that comes a European and UK run supporting The Home Team, taking in Germany, the Netherlands and a string of UK dates including Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Cardiff, London, Newcastle and Leeds. If ‘SHUT UP’ is designed to translate from headphones to a room full of people, they are certainly going to have plenty of opportunities to test that theory. What makes the track work is its lack of unnecessary complication. Arrows in Action aren't trying to reinvent alternative rock with one single, and they don't need to. ‘SHUT UP’ is built around the considerably more useful idea of knowing what your band does well and turning the volume up on it. The riffs are immediate, the chorus sticks, the production gives everything plenty of room to breathe and the message is simple enough to shout back after one listen. There is a confidence running through the whole thing that feels earned rather than manufactured. After years of building an audience, touring internationally and steadily moving from support slots towards headline shows, Arrows in Action sound like a band becoming increasingly comfortable with their own identity. ‘SHUT UP’ is the latest evidence of that progression: bright, loud, catchy and just rebellious enough to make being told to behave sound like a particularly terrible idea. If this is the direction Arrows in Action are heading, the next chapter looks like it could get considerably louder. You can check them out here: Arrows In Action

There is something gloriously chaotic about Ultimate Thunder, a band from Leeds who have spent the last decade quietly demolishing pretty much every assumption about what a punk band is supposed to look, sound and behave like. Formed in 2013 as an art project with musicians connected to People In Action, the band started with a simple enough idea: get a bunch of people together, give them instruments, turn the amplifiers up and see what happens. What happened was Ultimate Thunder, a gloriously unpredictable collision of post-punk, psychedelia, electronic noise, heavy rock and experimental lunacy that sounds a little like The Fall wandered into a Hawkwind rehearsal after several pints and decided nobody was going home until there was an album. At the centre of it all is something much more important than a clever musical concept. Ultimate Thunder is made up of musicians with learning disabilities, Down syndrome and autism, but the disability angle is not the music. It is part of the band's story, not the reason to listen to them. What matters is that these musicians have created something that stands up on its own terms, and when Ultimate Thunder walk onto a stage they are not there to be somebody's worthy community-project success story. They are there to play music, make a racket and, quite possibly, take the evening somewhere nobody expected it to go. That unpredictability is one of their greatest strengths. Their live performances have never felt like a band dutifully reproducing an album while counting down the minutes until the van home. Ultimate Thunder operate more like a musical experiment that has escaped from the laboratory, with improvisation, noise and spontaneous moments all part of the deal. Sometimes it is beautiful, sometimes it is completely bonkers, and occasionally it is both within the same song. That is exactly the point. Punk was never supposed to be about getting everything perfectly polished before somebody gave you permission to stand on a stage. The band's first album, Ultimate Thunder, arrived in 2022 after a recording process that could hardly have been more appropriate for the times. With lockdown making conventional recording impossible, the musicians worked remotely through Zoom, with producer James Mabbett, better known as Napoleon IIIrd, helping shape the resulting material into something that retained the band's eccentricity rather than sanding off all the interesting edges. It was followed in May 2024 by A Spider Will Come To Eat Your Flesh, released through Easy Listening Records, pushing the sound further into the band's strange little universe of post-punk, psychedelia, electronics and experimental rock. By this point, Ultimate Thunder had stopped being an interesting local project and started behaving like a proper band with a genuinely impressive CV. They played Kendal Calling, appeared at Millennium Square in Leeds supporting Yard Act and picked up the backing of people such as Tim Burgess, whose own career has been built on understanding that the best music is not always the music that arrives neatly packaged and labelled. Ultimate Thunder fit that philosophy perfectly. You don't quite know what you are going to get, but you know it is going to be theirs. Then came the bastard in the room: money. The band has been supported by Pyramid of Arts, but that funding came to an end in 2024, leaving Ultimate Thunder facing the rather less glamorous reality behind the gigs, records and festival appearances. Keeping a band like this going costs money. Rehearsal space costs money, equipment costs money, recording costs money, transport costs money, people need support and organisation, and all of the infrastructure that allows the musicians to continue making music does not magically appear because everybody involved has good intentions. That is where the current funding campaign comes in. Ultimate Thunder have already raised more than £17,000 towards a £30,000 target, helped by support from Tim Burgess, Yard Act and the Brudenell Social Club, but there is still a significant gap to close. The money is not about buying somebody a bigger ego or financing a rock'n'roll fantasy. It is about giving the band enough practical support to keep rehearsing, recording, performing and developing rather than watching something genuinely valuable disappear because the funding structure underneath it has collapsed. And there is another piece of the story that deserves attention. Filmmaker Ben Brown has spent three years documenting Ultimate Thunder for a film titled Ultimate Thunder: The Most Punk Rock Band in the World. The documentary follows the band through rehearsals, performances and the realities of their lives, and now needs further funding to complete post-production. Considering how much of the band's story is about people being given the opportunity to create something on their own terms, having that story preserved on film feels particularly important. The band's journey has not exactly been a smooth ride either. Matthew Watson lost his voice for months, while drummer Scott Anderson underwent open-heart surgery, yet the band continued pushing forward. These are the sorts of details that tend to disappear when music is reduced to a press release containing a list of achievements, because the reality of keeping any band together is usually considerably messier than the finished product suggests. In Ultimate Thunder's case, that reality is inseparable from the determination of the musicians, their families, their supporters and the people working behind the scenes to make the whole thing possible. What makes the current situation particularly frustrating is that Ultimate Thunder have already demonstrated what can happen when they are given the opportunity. They have released two albums, built an audience, played festivals, shared stages with established acts and attracted support from people who could quite easily spend their time backing safer, more predictable projects. They have created something that is culturally interesting, musically distinctive and socially significant without ever needing to turn themselves into a lecture about inclusion. That is why the funding appeal matters beyond simply keeping another band on the road. There is a tendency for arts funding to celebrate the idea of giving people a voice while quietly disappearing when those people actually find one. Ultimate Thunder have found theirs, and it is loud, weird, funny, occasionally abrasive and completely authentic. The challenge now is making sure the practical support exists for them to keep using it. If you have ever bought a record from a small band, paid for a gig, thrown a few quid into a crowdfunding campaign or complained that the music industry doesn't take enough risks, this is one of those moments when putting that belief into practice actually means something. Ultimate Thunder have already done the hard bit. They have made the music, built the band, got themselves onto stages and proved that there is an audience for what they do. What they need now is enough support to keep the machinery moving. Because ultimately, Ultimate Thunder aren't asking anyone to feel sorry for them, and they certainly aren't asking for a free pass because some of their musicians have disabilities. They are asking for the same thing every serious band needs: the opportunity to keep making music. The difference is that if this funding disappears, the consequences are not simply another band cancelling a tour or delaying an album. An entire creative space that has taken years to build could disappear with it. And that would be a fucking shame, because somewhere between the noise, the chaos, the strange songs, the unexpected gigs and the beautiful mess of Ultimate Thunder is something that music is supposed to have in the first place: freedom. They aren't asking for permission to be a band. They already are one. They are asking for the support to keep being one. Now the question is whether the rest of us are prepared to help keep the thing alive. The answer cannot simply be another round of applause, another newspaper article or another well-meaning comment about how inspiring the band are. Those things are nice, but they do not pay for rehearsal rooms, transport, support workers, equipment or film editing. What Ultimate Thunder need is practical support from people who believe that disabled musicians should have the same opportunity to develop their careers as anyone else. That means buying the records, supporting the crowdfunding campaigns, booking the band, helping fund the documentary and making sure that accessibility is treated as part of the infrastructure of music rather than an optional extra. Because the truth is that Ultimate Thunder have already done the hard work. They have made the albums, played the shows, attracted the attention and built something that is genuinely theirs. Now they need the support to keep going. And if the music industry can find money for another thousand identikit indie bands with guitars, surely it can find a little room in the budget for a Leeds punk band whose greatest crime is refusing to sound like anybody else. Ultimate Thunder are not a charity project. They are a band. And they deserve to be treated like one. You can follow the band here: Ultimate Thunder You can donate here: Go Fund Me

Three rounds. Nine bands. Supporters going absolutely fucking mental. One pre-show withdrawal. Tight voting. A storm outside. A mosh pit inside. And now, after three weeks of noise, nerves and increasingly serious competition, Hard Rock Rising reaches the final at Hard Rock Cafe Valencia this Wednesday, 23 September and it has been one hell of a ride! What started on September 2 with Nohe, Sita Rizzi and Jhay Onex immediately established that this wasn't going to be some polite battle-of-the-bands exercise where everybody gets a participation certificate and goes home. Jhay Onex pulled out before the first show, leaving Nohe and Sita Rizzi to face the pressure of opening the whole competition, and both delivered strongly in front of a crowd that had been handed the rather important job of deciding who moved forward. The audience chose Sita Rizzi. Round Two brought Moscow, City Of Fury and Horrorwolf into the Hard Rock Cafe, and the musical spread became even wider. City Of Fury went down the acoustic Britpop route, Moscow brought hard-rock indie muscle, while Horrorwolf dragged the evening into darker goth-and-roll territory. The venue was packed with friends, supporters and curious punters, and once again the voting went right down to the wire. Moscow got the ticket. Then came Round Three. Protocol Shift, Santonegro and Robert Grayd walked into the final qualifying battle knowing there was no safety net. No next Wednesday. No second chance. One band would join Sita Rizzi and Moscow in the final, while the other two would be watching from the other side of the barrier. And then Valencia decided to throw a biblical weather tantrum. While torrential rain and flooding hammered the province, the crowd still turned up at Hard Rock Cafe Valencia. Inside, things got considerably wetter with sweat as the mosh pit kicked off and the three bands threw everything they had at the stage. Santonegro brought their heavy Valencian stoner-rock attack, Robert Grayd arrived with their own distinctive proposition, and Protocol Shift delivered the performance that finally pushed them over the line. The voting was brutally close. Protocol Shift won. Now the three survivors are ready to settle it. Sita Rizzi enters the final having already demonstrated that she knows how to connect with a Hard Rock crowd. The Ibiza-born, Valencia-based alternative pop-rock singer-songwriter brings a mixture of rock and electronic influences to the competition, with direct songwriting and a style that refuses to sit comfortably inside one genre. Her Round One victory made her the first artist to book a place in the final, and she's had two weeks to watch the other contenders tear chunks out of each other. Moscow earned their place in Round Two after arguably the most musically varied night of the qualifying stages. Their hard-rock indie sound brought attitude, guitar muscle and plenty of swagger to a packed Hard Rock Cafe, and they managed to edge City Of Fury and Horrorwolf when the audience votes were counted. Then there's Protocol Shift, the last band through the door and therefore the only finalist who has had to survive the full three-act pressure cooker of Round Three. Their appearance in Valencia's alternative-metal circuit has already included a show at Peter Rock alongside We Exist Even Dead and Myseria earlier this year, and they now arrive at the Hard Rock final with momentum very much on their side. And let's not forget the bands that got this far before the voting gods slammed the door. Nohe came within one round of the final. City Of Fury delivered that stripped-back Britpop attack before Moscow took the vote. Horrorwolf brought the goth-and-roll darkness and made the second round anything but predictable. Santonegro, one of Valencia's established stoner-rock names, brought years of experience and a seriously heavy sound to Round Three, while Robert Grayd also pushed Protocol Shift all the way in a qualifying round decided by the audience. And then there's Jhay Onex, whose Hard Rock Rising campaign ended before it had even started when nerves got the better of the situation and he withdrew from Round One. That's the beauty and brutality of live competition. You don't get to edit the story afterwards. Hard Rock Cafe Valencia has been the perfect arena for the whole thing. The venue has hosted three battle nights packed with musicians, mates, supporters and people who simply turned up to see what was happening, while the audience voting has made every performance feel genuinely consequential. Hard Rock's own Valencia campaign put nine artists through three qualifying battles before the final, with the audience holding the voting power. And now the big one and there is serious local hardware on the table. The Valencia winner will take home €500 cash from Hard Rock Cafe Valencia, an exclusive gig at Hard Rock Cafe Valencia, a professional photoshoot with rock photographer Rhyan Paul, and an exclusive interview and review in The Music Mole Magazine. But the biggest prize sits beyond Valencia. The winner will progress into the next stage of the international Hard Rock Rising competition, giving one of these three acts the chance to take their music beyond the city and into Hard Rock's global competition. The worldwide Hard Rock Rising programme is running live competition nights across participating Hard Rock Cafes, with artists competing for opportunities including a major-artist support slot at Hard Rock Live Orlando, a recording session at Coke Studio LA with distribution support and a $10,000 cash prize. So, after three rounds of drama, one withdrawal, six eliminated acts, increasingly rabid supporters, close voting and one spectacularly wet night in Valencia, it comes down to three. Sita Rizzi. Moscow. Protocol Shift. One stage. One audience. One winner. Hard Rock Cafe Valencia has provided the stage. The bands have supplied the noise. The supporters have supplied the madness. On Wednesday 23 September, Valencia gets to decide who rises.

Roig Arena had barely recovered from the week's musical traffic when Grupo Firme arrived on Saturday night and promptly decided that Valencia needed three hours of Mexican regional music, thousands of sombreros and enough collective singing to probably register somewhere on the Richter scale. More than 11,000 people packed the arena for the opening night of the group's European tour, and from the moment the first notes landed, this was less a concert than a gigantic family gathering with a very loud soundtrack. Led by Eduin Caz, Grupo Firme have built their reputation on making regional Mexican music feel enormous, communal and gloriously unrestrained, and Valencia got the full treatment. The evening opened with “Alégale al Umpire”, quickly followed by “Pídeme”, “Felicidades” and “Juro Por Dios”, establishing the mood immediately: this was going to be a long night, and nobody in the building appeared remotely interested in leaving early. The visual spectacle was almost as important as the music. Across the arena, fans arrived dressed in black, with cowboy hats, boots and the unmistakable swagger associated with regional Mexican culture. What might have looked like a fashion convention from the outside became something much more meaningful once the music started. Thousands of people were singing together, waving, dancing and answering Caz from the stands, creating the sort of atmosphere that makes an arena feel considerably smaller than its actual dimensions. Grupo Firme understand that connection is everything. Their songs are built around heartbreak, drinking, love, regret, pride and the complicated business of trying to keep moving when life has other ideas. There is plenty of emotional ammunition, but the band never allows the evening to become weighed down by it. A song about getting your heart smashed can quite happily be followed by another that sounds like an invitation to order another round. “El Amor de Su Vida”, originally recorded with Grupo Frontera, was one of the early crowd magnets, while “El Tóxico” and “Yo Ya No Vuelvo Contigo” sent another wave of voices around the arena. By now, Roig Arena wasn't really a venue anymore. It was a sea of people who knew every word. Then came “Ya Supérame”, one of the night's biggest singalongs, followed by “Al Final Del Día” and “En Tu Perra Vida”. These were the moments when the distance between performer and audience simply disappeared. Caz could throw a line towards the crowd and receive thousands of voices back almost instantly. And for a band beginning a European tour, there was something particularly significant about that reaction. This wasn't an audience being introduced to Grupo Firme. This was an audience that had been waiting for them. The night also made room for something considerably more reflective with “Así Fue”, the Juan Gabriel classic receiving a heartfelt airing as a tribute to one of the defining figures in Mexican popular music. In a set fuelled by celebration, drinking and big choruses, the moment provided a reminder of the enormous musical heritage sitting behind the contemporary regional Mexican explosion. But Grupo Firme weren't about to let the mood stay solemn for long. After three hours of music, shouting, dancing and what looked like enough singing to leave several thousand people without functioning vocal cords by breakfast, the band finally reached the finish line with “Gracias”. Its message of carrying on regardless of criticism or outside opinion made for a fitting conclusion to a show built around identity, belonging and refusing to apologise for who you are. And that may have been the defining feature of the whole night. Grupo Firme didn't simply bring their songs to Valencia. They brought a piece of Mexican culture with them, and more than 11,000 people turned Roig Arena into a huge, noisy, occasionally emotional and relentlessly celebratory meeting place for it. Three hours later, the hats were still bobbing, the voices were still going and the party was still refusing to die. For the opening night of “La Primera Europeda”, Grupo Firme didn't ease themselves into Europe. They arrived at full volume.

There are probably easier ways to spend a Monday night in Valencia than standing inside Peter Rock while four Czech lunatics turn the place into a high-speed celebration of bodily fluids, toilet humour and industrial-strength grindcore. But where’s the fun in easy? On Monday 12 October, Gutalax roll into Peter Rock Club as part of an eight-date Spanish assault that begins in Portugalete on October 9 and tears through Logroño, Barcelona, Valencia, Murcia, Granada, Sevilla and Madrid before somebody presumably remembers that the human body was never designed for this much blastbeat. For the uninitiated, Gutalax are not your average metal band. Formed in Křemže in the Czech Republic in 2009, they have spent the best part of two decades turning goregrind into something resembling the bastard offspring of a filthy toilet cubicle, a malfunctioning chainsaw and the world's most unhinged pub singalong. Their own description of the music as “gore ’n’ roll” pretty much nails the crime scene: savage grindcore rhythms, ridiculous humour, guttural vocals and riffs designed to hit you somewhere between the chest and the digestive system. And yes, the imagery is exactly what you're thinking. Gutalax shows have developed their own peculiar visual language, with fans regularly turning up in white protective suits, carrying toilet brushes, waving bog roll and generally behaving as though the local plumbing industry has been appointed artistic director. Recent reports from their live shows have even documented portable toilets being crowd-surfed. At this point, conventional concert etiquette has clearly been flushed down the nearest drain. Which makes Peter Rock a particularly interesting place to unleash them. The Valencia date lands in the middle of the Spanish run, immediately after Barcelona and before Murcia, and the band are billed with an additional guest for the Peter Rock show. Doors open at 8pm, with the music scheduled to start at 8:30pm. Peter Rock has built a reputation for packing a remarkably broad range of live music into its Valencia programming, but Gutalax represent a rather different kind of proposition. The club's intimate setting means this isn't going to be one of those enormous festival stages where the band appears somewhere on the horizon behind a sea of phone screens. This is close quarters. Approximately 200-capacity territory. Sweat-on-the-walls territory. The sort of room where a grindcore breakdown doesn't so much happen to you as physically arrive at your address. And Gutalax aren't coming to Valencia for a polite cultural exchange. Their catalogue includes Shit Beast, Shit Happens! and The Shitpendables, alongside splits and releases that have established them as one of the more recognisable names in the European goregrind scene. Their songs come at you with the subtlety of a toilet door being kicked off its hinges, while the band's deliberately absurd presentation stops the whole thing disappearing into the usual black-clad seriousness that can sometimes surround extreme metal. That combination is the secret weapon. Gutalax understand that extreme music can be genuinely fucking heavy without taking itself too seriously. So expect riffs that sound like machinery being fed through a woodchipper, drums operating at speeds that should probably require a licence, vocals from somewhere deep inside the human sewer system and a crowd increasingly convinced that toilet brushes are perfectly legitimate concert accessories. The Spanish tour itself is impressively relentless: Portugalete on October 9, Logroño on October 10, Barcelona on October 11, Valencia on October 12, then a short breather before Murcia, Granada, Sevilla and Madrid bring the whole diseased procession to a close on October 18. For Valencia, however, October 12 is the date to circle in something suitably unpleasant. Peter Rock. Gutalax. Monday night. Bring your earplugs. Bring your sense of humour. Bring whatever protective equipment you feel is appropriate. And if somebody walks past you carrying a toilet brush like a festival flag, don't ask questions. You already know what happened. For tickets and more information: Peter Rock

Nine thousand people, two and a half hours, three of the biggest names in Spanish rap and enough collective volume to make the walls of Roig Arena wonder what the fuck had just happened. Hijos de la Ruina returned to Valencia on Friday night, with Natos, Waor and Recycled J finally back together on the same stage and the city responding with the sort of welcome usually reserved for football victories, national holidays and people returning from the dead. This wasn't simply a run through the greatest hits. The reunion also provided the Valencia crowd with its first proper live taste of Hijos de la Ruina Vol. 4, the latest chapter in a project that has become one of the defining collaborations in Spanish rap. The trio spent roughly two and a half hours moving between the new material, the tracks that built their shared history and songs from their individual careers, creating a set that felt less like a conventional gig and more like three separate careers temporarily colliding at maximum velocity. They opened with “Otra vez” and “Bajo Zero”, immediately putting the new record front and centre before dropping into “Los niños del barrio”, a track rooted in the experience of growing up without much and still believing there might be something better waiting around the corner. That combination of street-level detail, ambition and bruised optimism has always been central to the Hijos de la Ruina story, and in a room holding 9,000 people it takes on an entirely different weight. Then came the personal history. Natos and Waor brought out “Piratas” and “Por ti”, while Recycled J reached back into his own catalogue with “Kilometrozero” and “Cabeza de ratón”, before Hoka appeared as the first surprise guest of the night, joining the trio for “Fabergé” and “Budokai”. But Valencia hadn't come to politely observe. The temperature went up another few degrees when Grecas appeared halfway through the show, joining Natos and Waor for the first live performance in front of an audience of their new collaboration “Blablacar”. The track had only arrived a week earlier, making its appearance here feel less like another guest spot and more like a genuinely fresh moment happening in real time. From there, the set moved through “Speed”, “A la tumba” and “Carretera”, songs that circle around success, time, friendship and the increasingly complicated business of figuring out what remains after you've spent years chasing the next thing. The emotional centre of the evening came with “Casanova”, “Roto por dentro”, “Más Alcohol” and “Oveja Negra”, followed by “Sudores fríos”, while the appearance of Suite Soprano for “Nada ha cambiado” added another piece to a night already packed with unexpected combinations. By this point Roig Arena was operating at full capacity in every sense except possibly oxygen. The final stretch belonged to the big guns, with Recycled J's “Bambino” followed by Natos y Waor's “Cicatrices”, before the three reunited for “Madriz” and brought the whole thing crashing to a close. And that is perhaps the strangest thing about Hijos de la Ruina. On paper, this is a project that appears whenever the three artists decide to put their individual careers temporarily to one side. In reality, every time Natos, Waor and Recycled J step onto the same stage, the combined history becomes considerably bigger than the sum of its parts. Valencia got the full version. Nine thousand people packed into Roig Arena, two and a half hours of old favourites and new material, surprise guests arriving from all directions and three artists demonstrating exactly why Hijos de la Ruina remains such a potent force in Spanish rap. Friday night wasn't nostalgia. It was a reunion with serious fucking volume.

Forget the countdown to Christmas. Forget football. Forget whatever algorithmically approved nonsense your phone thinks you should be watching. There are eight days until BrevaRock 2026, and on Saturday 26 September the Parque de la Huerta in Albatera is preparing to become a rather dangerous place for anyone who likes their weekends quiet. Fourteen editions in, BrevaRock remains gloriously uninterested in behaving like a polished corporate festival. The bill is guitars, punk, attitude, sweat and several thousand opportunities to make a decision your knees will regret on Sunday morning. And now we have the running order, which means the important logistical work can begin: deciding which bands you're definitely going to see, which ones you're going to accidentally discover while standing at the bar, and precisely when your sensible plan to have "just a couple" of beers is going to go completely to hell. The latest schedule has Jódete kicking things off at 15:30, with 40 minutes to get the machinery moving before Error de Visión take over at 16:30. Desklate follow at 17:30, then Afónica Naranjo hit the stage at 18:30 for a 50-minute set. At 19:45, it's the turn of Catalina Grande Piñón Pequeño, before the first major heavyweight of the evening arrives. And that's where the day really starts getting interesting. DEF CON DOS take the stage at 21:00 for a substantial 75-minute set, bringing their gloriously warped collision of punk, hip-hop, metal and political satire to the Parque de la Huerta. Then, at 22:45, El Último Ke Zierre get 75 minutes to do what they have been doing for more than three decades: give Spanish punk a collective voice and encourage several hundred people to shout themselves hoarse. But don't even think about heading home after that. Kaos Urbano arrive at 00:30 and have the longest set of the night, a full 80 minutes, taking BrevaRock deep into Saturday-night territory and well past the point where anybody is pretending this is a sensible hobby. Finally, Laura DSK closes the whole bloody operation from 02:15 until 03:15. That's nine bands, eight hours of scheduled live music and a festival running deep into Sunday morning, all for a ticket price of €15 plus booking fees. Doors are listed for 14:45, with the official event information placing the festival at the Auditorio Parque de la Huerta in Albatera. The beauty of BrevaRock is that it doesn't need a ridiculous production circus wrapped around it. The attraction is brutally simple: get a load of bands together, point them at a stage, open the gates and let the audience do the rest. The organisers have kept the festival alive through fourteen editions at a time when rising production costs are making smaller independent events increasingly difficult to sustain. So, eight days. Get the boots cleaned. Charge the phone. Locate the sunglasses. Stretch whatever body parts still work. And start planning your route through Albatera's annual collision of punk, rock, beer, sweat and beautifully questionable decision-making. For tickets and more information: Breva Rock

Leyendas del Rock has just thrown another sizeable slab of British heavy metal onto the 2027 bill, and this one comes with serious historical weight. Saxon will headline the final day of Leyendas del Rock 2027 on Saturday 14 August, bringing Biff Byford and one of the defining bands of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal back to Villena for a full headline set. If you know your metal, you already know the drill. If you don't, Saxon are one of the bands who helped build the bloody thing in the first place. Emerging from the late-70s British metal explosion alongside the likes of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, Saxon turned working-class British heavy metal into an international force, leaving behind a catalogue containing ‘Wheels of Steel’, ‘Denim and Leather’ and ‘Princess of the Night’. More than four decades later, Byford remains at the front of the machine, and Leyendas is clearly expecting Saxon to arrive in Villena with something considerably heavier than a nostalgia trip. This is particularly significant because Saturday 14 August is still being built around another major headliner yet to be announced. Saxon therefore become the headline act for the final jornada, while the festival keeps another sizeable name tucked away in its armoury. After the huge XX Anniversary edition, Leyendas del Rock is already signalling that 2027 isn't going to be an attempt to quietly follow the party. The latest announcement also brings a serious injection of metal from several different corners of the spectrum. Angelus Apatrida represent the Spanish thrash-metal contingent, while Gloryhammer bring their gloriously theatrical brand of melodic power metal to the proceedings. Asomvel add a dose of dirty garage rock, and Scottish death-metal lunatics Party Cannon promise to bring their particular interpretation of extreme-metal mayhem to Villena. Then there's Skillet, the American rock heavyweights and one of the biggest names associated with Christian rock, who were announced previously and remain part of an increasingly broad 2027 lineup. But Saxon are the announcement that gives this particular Saturday its backbone. There's something fitting about having a band whose history is intertwined with the birth of British heavy metal standing beneath the Leyendas del Rock lights in Villena. Their songs were forged in an era when denim jackets, leather, twin guitars and enormous riffs were becoming the language of a generation, and tracks such as ‘Wheels of Steel’ and ‘Denim and Leather’ remain embedded in the DNA of traditional metal. And the important detail here is a full headliner set. This isn't Saxon dropping into Villena for a shortened festival appearance before disappearing into the night. The band will close the Saturday programme with the stage, time and volume required for a proper headline assault. With tickets already reportedly moving quickly, the festival is also urging fans to get their camping and pool ticketssorted alongside their festival passes. In other words, the annual migration to Villena is already beginning to take shape. Leyendas del Rock 2027 is still some way off, and there's another major Saturday headliner waiting to be revealed, but the picture is becoming increasingly clear. Saxon are coming back to Villena, Biff Byford is bringing the denim, the guitars are coming out and Saturday 14 August already has one hell of a soundtrack. The festival just needs to tell us who gets the final slot! For tickets and more information: Leyendas Del Rock

If Valencia wanted to test just how badly people actually wanted to see live music on Wednesday night, it couldn't have designed a better obstacle course. As Protocol Shift, Santonegro and Robert Grayd prepared to fight for the final place in Hard Rock Rising's Valencia final, the skies decided to throw absolutely everything at the city. Torrential rain hammered Valencia, roads flooded, transport was disrupted and an emergency alert was issued as the storm turned parts of the province into a temporary aquatic theme park. And still, they came... By the time the doors opened at Hard Rock Cafe Valencia, the message was clear: the weather might have been completely unhinged, but the fans weren't staying home. Supporters battled through the rain to pack into the venue, and once the music started, any thought of what was happening outside disappeared beneath the guitars, drums, shouting and the increasingly lively action down the front. This was the third and final qualifying round of Hard Rock Rising, following Sita Rizzi's victory in Round One and Moscow's progression from Round Two. Protocol Shift, Santonegro and Robert Grayd knew exactly what was waiting at the end of the night: one remaining place in the final and no second chance. The audience had already established itself as the competition's unofficial judging panel, and once again the voting would be decided by the people standing in the room rather than somebody sitting behind a desk with a clipboard. All three bands delivered. There was no passenger on this bill and no easy option for the audience. Each act brought its own identity to the stage, and the quality of the performances made the eventual result particularly difficult to call. The crowd responded accordingly, creating a seriously good atmosphere that somehow seemed to get louder as the night progressed. What could easily have become a damp Wednesday misery session turned into exactly what live music should be: people packed together, supporting their favourite bands, discovering something new and making enough noise to make the whole competition feel important. Down the front, things became considerably more physical. The mosh pit was in full effect, with bodies bouncing around as the crowd surrendered to the music. Outside, Valencia was dealing with torrential rain and flooding; inside, the only thing threatening to overflow was the energy in front of the stage. And then came the voting. If anyone was expecting an easy result, they clearly haven't been paying attention to Hard Rock Rising in Valencia. The previous rounds had already demonstrated just how close this competition could become, and the third heat followed the same pattern. Every vote mattered, with the final result going right down to the wire as supporters waited to discover which of the three bands would claim that last ticket. In the end, Protocol Shift got the nod. They now join Sita Rizzi and Moscow in the Hard Rock Rising Valencia final on Wednesday, September 23, giving the city a three-way showdown with everything still to play for. What makes the whole thing particularly satisfying is the way the Valencia rounds have developed. This hasn't felt like some sterile corporate talent contest where bands turn up, play their allotted minutes and disappear into the night. The audience has genuinely got behind the artists, the bands have fed off that energy and the competition has created a proper live-music atmosphere around the Hard Rock Cafe. Last night, that atmosphere was even more impressive considering what was happening outside. Valencia was being battered by an extreme storm, with rainfall severe enough to cause flooding, disrupt transport and trigger emergency measures across the province. Yet the fans still turned up, packed the room and made sure the final qualifying round got the send-off it deserved. Three bands played their arses off. The crowd brought the noise. The mosh pit did its thing. The voting was brutally close. Protocol Shift got the final ticket. Now it's Moscow, Sita Rizzi and Protocol Shift. One night. Three finalists. One Valencia champion. Bring on the final!! You can check out Protocol Shift Here! For more information: Hard Rock Cafe

For nearly two hours at Roig Arena, Silvio Rodríguez opened up a catalogue spanning more than five decades, moving between early compositions, enduring classics and newer material without treating the past as a museum piece. At 79, the Cuban singer-songwriter remains an artist whose songs are driven by words, melody and the emotional weight of ideas, and Valencia gave those songs plenty of room to breathe. The early years were represented by ‘Sueño con serpientes’, ‘Pequeña serenata diurna’ and ‘Quién fuera’, before Rodríguez moved into songs that helped cement his place among the most important figures in Cuban songwriting, including ‘Escaramujo’ and ‘Ala de colibrí’. Each carried its own history, but the performance never felt like a simple run through the archives. One of the strongest stretches came with ‘Eva’, ‘El necio’ and ‘La belleza’, three songs that reveal different sides of Rodríguez's writing. ‘El necio’, in particular, remains one of his most recognisable declarations of personal conviction, while ‘La belleza’ became an especially intimate moment when Rodríguez performed it alongside his wife, musician Niurka González, and their daughter Malva Rodríguez. There was also plenty of evidence that Rodríguez is still looking forward rather than simply revisiting his past. ‘Historia de las sillas’, ‘Noche sin fin y mar’, ‘Viene la cosa’ and ‘Nuestro después’ brought more recent songwriting into the set, demonstrating the breadth of an artist whose career has continued to evolve across generations. Literature has always occupied a natural space alongside Rodríguez's music, and that relationship was reflected in the performance when he recited ‘Halt!’ by Cuban poet Luis Rogelio Nogueras. It was a reminder that his work has never been solely about melody; language, poetry and the exploration of ideas are fundamental to the world he creates. By the final stretch, the anticipation around two particular songs was impossible to miss. ‘Ojalá’, arguably the song most closely associated with Rodríguez beyond the Spanish-speaking world, provided one of the evening's defining moments, before ‘Por quien merece amor’ brought the concert to its conclusion. Five decades is a long time for any songwriter to remain relevant, but Rodríguez's catalogue has the advantage of being rooted in human questions rather than a particular musical fashion. Love, freedom, conviction, doubt, beauty and the complicated business of being alive remain just as useful subjects now as they were when many of these songs were written. At Roig Arena, Valencia wasn't simply hearing old songs brought back to life. It was hearing a body of work that has travelled across generations and still has plenty to say.

The stars now have their timetable, the countdown is officially underway and, on 25 and 26 September, La Marina Norte de València will become the centre of the alternative music universe as VISOR FEST 2026 returns for its most ambitious edition yet. Eight major international names will bring two days of post-punk, indie, Britpop, shoegaze and rock history to the city, with everything taking place on a single stage and, crucially, with no clashes between the bands. That last detail is worth celebrating. While many festivals have you sprinting between stages and sacrificing half a set to catch the beginning of another, VISOR keeps things beautifully simple: every concert is played in full, giving fans the chance to properly settle into each performance rather than constantly checking their watches. Friday gets things moving at 18:30 with Australian legends Hoodoo Gurus, whose garage, power-pop and rock'n'roll catalogue includes classics such as ‘What’s My Scene’ and ‘Come Anytime’. New Model Army follow at 20:30, bringing more than four decades of alternative rock history and a particularly strong connection with Valencian audiences, before The Damned take the stage at 22:30 to celebrate their remarkable 50-year journey through British punk and rock. Then, at 00:30, Ocean Colour Scene will close the first night with a special celebration of Moseley Shoals, the album that turns 30 this year and gave the band some of their biggest songs, including ‘The Riverboat Song’ and ‘The Day We Caught The Train’. Between the performances, DJ sets from Luis Bonias and Eneida Fever! will keep the party moving. Saturday brings another heavyweight combination, beginning with Swedish indie-pop favourites The Wannadies at 18:30. Gene return to Spanish stages at 20:30 for a particularly special appearance, followed at 22:30 by shoegaze pioneers Ride, whose glorious combination of guitars, melody and psychedelia should sound rather spectacular beside the Mediterranean. Then comes the big finale, with Manic Street Preachers taking over at 00:30 for a career-spanning set that reaches from Generation Terrorists through more than three decades of monumental Welsh rock. Mario Oldies and Alesa DJ provide the musical glue between the live performances, ensuring the atmosphere continues long after one band has left the stage. The festival experience, however, starts before anyone reaches La Marina Norte. Throughout September, Universo Visor, once again working alongside Cervezas Alhambra, has been spreading the VISOR spirit across Valencia with listening parties, talks, book presentations, concerts and special sessions built around the simple idea of slowing down and properly listening to music. There are still two pre-festival dates to come. Friday 18 September sees Closca Bar host another Cata Acústica Momentos Alhambra, combining three beers, three specially created food pairings and three songs, with Roberto Grayd providing the soundtrack. Then, on Saturday 19 September, Loco Club hosts VISORFEST club: Un Viaje Musical A Través Del Tiempo, presented in collaboration with Discos Amsterdam, where Valencian bands Apolo, Ghost Transmission, Iris a Secas, Los Belushi and Palmera will travel through the music of the 80s, 90s and early 2000s before a DJ set from Juan Vitoria. All of which means the VISOR countdown is now firmly into its final stretch. In a festival season increasingly obsessed with bigger stages, more bands and impossible timetables, VISOR is sticking to something much more appealing: great artists, a carefully curated programme and enough space to actually enjoy the music. With Hoodoo Gurus, New Model Army, The Damned, Ocean Colour Scene, The Wannadies, Gene, Ride and Manic Street Preachers all heading for La Marina Norte, Valencia has two seriously heavyweight nights ahead. The stars have their times. Now we just need to wait for them to appear. For tickets and more information: Visorfest