There’s a particular magic to a great pop song that knows exactly when to get out of the way. ‘Last Call’, the new single from Australian indie-rock favourites Vacations, understands that completely. Clocking in with the energy of a band who have no intention of hanging around until closing time, ‘Last Call’ is short, sharp and seriously addictive — a bright, restless blast of indie pop built around that increasingly familiar feeling that life is moving faster than you are. And beneath all those hooks, there’s something surprisingly existential going on. The song uses the final call at a bar as its central metaphor: that horrible little moment when the night is ending and you're suddenly confronted with everything you haven't done yet. Am I falling behind? Am I wasting time? Am I ever going to catch up? Campbell Burns turns those questions into something far more uplifting than depressing. Rather than wallowing in the panic of getting older, ‘Last Call’ embraces uncertainty. Maybe you achieve the milestones you thought you were supposed to. Maybe you don't. Maybe your definition of success changes completely along the way. That's a pretty big subject to squeeze into a punchy pop song. Vacations make it sound effortless. The track arrives as the third preview of the band's forthcoming album Pursuit of Anything, due 2 October via Nettwerk, and it offers another glimpse of a band increasingly comfortable with the tension between infectious pop songwriting and more complicated emotional territory. Burns has described the album as being about entering his thirties and looking back at his younger self — a period of weddings, relationships, family, ambition and the uncomfortable realisation that nobody actually hands you a map for adulthood. That makes ‘Last Call’ particularly effective. It sounds carefree, but there's a little voice in the background asking whether you're doing enough. Vacations have been building towards this point for years. The band have accumulated billions of streams, platinum-level success and sold-out international tours, but ‘Last Call’ doesn't sound like a victory lap. It sounds like a group still hungry enough to question what comes next. And that hunger is exactly what makes the track work. It's catchy without being disposable, reflective without becoming miserable, and polished without sanding away the personality. The production gives the song a dreamy sheen while keeping the whole thing moving at a satisfying pace. Then it's over. And you immediately want to hear it again. If Pursuit of Anything follows this trajectory, Vacations could have something rather special on their hands. The band's own description of the album talks about chasing happiness, constantly pursuing whatever comes next and rediscovering that feeling of excitement and self-discovery. For more information: Vacations

Next Thursday, 3 September, the Roig Arena gets a serious dose of Celtic soul, roots, rock'n'roll and good old-fashioned musical alchemy when The Waterboys return to Valencia for what promises to be one of the city's most intriguing concerts of the year. The show begins at 9pm, and Valencia is the band's only Spanish date of 2026, making this a particularly tasty appointment for anyone who still believes that a great rock concert should feel like something slightly bigger than a collection of songs played in the correct order. Because Fisherman's Blues wasn't just another Waterboys album. Released in 1988, it was the record where Mike Scott and his band kicked open the doors of their rock sound and wandered into something far stranger and richer: Irish folk, country, blues, gospel, traditional music and roots rock all colliding in the same musical pub at three in the morning. The result was an album that has gone on to become one of the defining records of the band's career. One of the great attractions of this particular Waterboys incarnation is the return of Steve Wickham, whose fiddle became one of the defining sounds of the Fisherman's Blues era. Then there's Steve Earle. The American singer-songwriter, guitarist and mandolin player joins the Waterboys for the revue, bringing his own Americana DNA into the band's Celtic-rooted universe. The resulting eight-piece lineup is designed specifically to revisit the spirit of the late-1980s Waterboys while giving the material enough room to breathe, wander and occasionally disappear down an entirely different road. ( The original Fisherman's Blues sessions produced an almost ridiculous amount of material, much of it recorded during the band's extended creative period in Dublin and Spiddal. Now some of that buried treasure is finally seeing the light of day. Atlantic Rain, a three-disc collection of previously unreleased recordings from those sessions, arrived in July 2026, effectively reopening the vault on one of the most fascinating periods in Waterboys history. The Waterboys have been around long enough to qualify as rock institution, but that label doesn't really fit. Institutions don't usually sound this restless. Mike Scott has spent decades moving between rock, folk, poetry, spirituality, country, traditional music and whatever else happens to catch his imagination. The Waterboys' great trick has always been making those collisions sound inevitable. And next Thursday, that restless spirit comes! For last minute tickets: Roig Arena

Forget the glossy festival brochures, the VIP nonsense and the increasingly desperate race to make every Spanish summer festival look like Coachella with better weather. BrevaRock is something else. On Saturday 26 September, Albatera gets ready for twelve hours of guitars, attitude, sweat, pogoing and beautifully inappropriate amounts of noise as BrevaRock 2026 takes over the Auditorio del Parque de la Huerta. Doors open at 14:45, the first band hits at 15:00, and the whole glorious racket is available for €15 plus booking fee. Fourteen editions in, BrevaRock has reached the point where it doesn't need to shout about being an alternative festival. It simply gets on with being one. And this year's bill is a proper bastard. At the top of the pile sit three names that could turn a respectable Saturday afternoon into a full-scale public disorder incident: El Último Ke Zierre, Kaos Urbano and Def Con Dos. Alongside them come Laura DSK, Catalina Grande Piñón Pequeño, Afónica Naranjo, Jódete, Desklate and Error de Visión, creating the kind of lineup that understands exactly why people still travel across the country to stand in a field with a beer in one hand and somebody else's elbow in the other. This is punk rock without the museum glass. twelve hours of beautiful trouble BrevaRock's appeal has always been rooted in something increasingly rare: it actually feels like it belongs somewhere. Albatera isn't pretending to be Barcelona. It isn't trying to become Madrid for a weekend. It is a town in the Vega Baja putting its own stamp on the live music map, and after fourteen editions the festival has developed a reputation that stretches well beyond the comarca. The regional tourism site describes it as a consolidated rock festival, attracting audiences to Albatera for a day devoted to Spanish rock. The Parque de la Huerta isn't some anonymous industrial estate with a couple of food trucks dumped beside a temporary stage. There's a sense of place here, and that matters. Especially when you're spending twelve hours getting battered by punk guitars. And then there is the price - Fifteen euros! In 2026, when festival tickets can require the financial planning normally associated with buying a small car, BrevaRock is asking less than some venues charge for a couple of drinks and a suspiciously small burger. The organisers and Albatera council have been blunt about the economics. Maintaining festivals is getting harder as production costs rise and events disappear from the calendar, but the ambition is to keep BrevaRock alive and build towards a fifteenth edition and beyond. That deserves attention. Because independent-minded rock festivals don't survive on nostalgia. They survive because people turn up. El Último Ke Zierre are the kind of band BrevaRock was built for. Thirty-plus years of Spanish punk, political bite and street-level songwriting have given the Burriana veterans a catalogue designed for mass shouting. This is music made to be screamed back at a stage, preferably while several hundred people are moving in completely different directions at once. Then there's Kaos Urbano, bringing the Oi!/street-punk charge from Madrid. Their inclusion gives the bill an extra dose of danger and confrontation — the sort of band whose songs seem to arrive wearing boots. And Def Con Dos? Well, this is where things get gloriously weird. Their collision of hip-hop, punk, metal and political satire has always existed in its own slightly unhinged universe. They are impossible to file neatly under one genre, which is precisely why they work so well on a festival like this. Expect attitude, sarcasm, riffs and a crowd suddenly discovering that shouting along to politically incorrect lyrics is an excellent way to spend a Saturday evening. Catalina Grande Piñón Pequeño, Afónica Naranjo, Jódete, Desklate, Error de Visión and the rest of the bill ensure this isn't just a greatest-hits package for people who already know every band on the poster. There is a deliberate combination of established national acts, emerging artists and local/regional talent — something the organisers and municipality have identified as central to the festival's identity. That matters because festivals are supposed to be dangerous little ecosystems. You arrive for one band. You end up drunk, sunburned and emotionally attached to another band whose name you couldn't pronounce at lunchtime. There is also something wonderfully appropriate about a festival called BrevaRock happening in Albatera. The town's agricultural identity is closely tied to the breva, its celebrated fig crop, with the municipality continuing to promote the fruit as one of its signature products. Which means that, theoretically, BrevaRock is a celebration of two of the great forces of nature: figs and distorted guitars. One is sticky.The other is loud.Both can cause trouble if handled incorrectly. The Spanish festival landscape is changing fast. The giant events grab the headlines. The superstar bookings dominate social media. Meanwhile, smaller festivals are increasingly fighting a completely different battle — rising costs, logistics, infrastructure, artist fees and the simple question of whether enough people will buy tickets early enough to make the numbers work. Fourteen editions is no accident. It is the result of repeatedly persuading people that spending a Saturday in Albatera is a better idea than sitting at home watching somebody else's festival on Instagram. Expect guitars, political shouting, sweaty bodies, beer, bruises, bad decisions, excellent decisions, old favourites, new discoveries and the sort of communal chaos that makes live music worth leaving the sofa for. For tickets and more information: Breva Rock

On Sunday 27 September 2026, The Sisters of Mercy will roll into the Roig Arena for a night of gothic rock, industrial gloom and that unmistakable black-clad menace that has made the Leeds legends one of alternative music’s most enduring forces. The show is scheduled for 9pm, with doors from 7pm. Andrew Eldritch’s band helped define the darker end of the 1980s alternative universe, turning drum machines, cavernous guitars and enormous vocals into something that sounded less like a conventional rock band and more like the soundtrack to a particularly bad night in a European nightclub. From ‘Temple of Love’ and ‘This Corrosion’ to ‘Lucretia My Reflection’, their catalogue contains some of the great monuments of gothic rock. But this isn’t simply an exercise in dragging the past out of the wardrobe. The current live set combines familiar favourites with newer material that has become a major part of the band's modern shows. The Sisters of Mercy remain a strange beast: hugely influential, deliberately elusive and never particularly interested in behaving like a conventional heritage act. The band has been operating for more than four decades, with Eldritch remaining the central creative figure since the departure of guitarist Gary Marx in the mid-1980s. The Roig Arena has already established itself as one of the city's major concert destinations, but The Sisters of Mercy bring something considerably darker to the building's increasingly eclectic programme. This isn't stadium pop, festival indie or polished classic rock. Expect black clothes, big hair, industrial electronics, huge guitars and several thousand people who probably haven't seen daylight since breakfast. Adding further interest to the evening, Dutch art-punk outfit Real Farmer are listed as support, bringing their frantic, fast-moving sound to the bill before the Sisters take over. The Valencia date forms part of a Spanish run that also takes in Bilbao, Madrid, Granada and Barcelona, making it one of the band's significant visits to the country in 2026. So dust off the leather. Find the eyeliner you haven't touched since 1991. Dig out the battered Sisters T-shirt from the bottom of the wardrobe. For tickets and more information: Roig Arena

There were 9,000 people inside Roig Arena last night, and judging by the volume coming off the floor, approximately 8,997 of them had arrived with the sole intention of destroying whatever remained of their vocal cords. Judas Priest were in Valencia. The leather was out. The denim was out. The horns were up. Somewhere in the building, several decades of accumulated bad decisions were being proudly celebrated. And then the lights went down. At this point, Judas Priest don't need an introduction. They need a warning label. When Rob Halford appeared, dressed like the human embodiment of every heavy-metal cliché ever invented — except this time the cliché was actually the original — Roig Arena erupted. The opening blast of “You've Got Another Thing Comin'” hit the room with the force of a speeding truck, immediately followed by “Metal Gods” and “Breaking the Law” Three songs in and Valencia had effectively become a giant, extremely loud support group for people who refuse to grow up. And thank God for that. Earlier, Udo Dirkschneider had kicked proceedings into gear with a 40th-anniversary celebration of Balls To The Wall, delivering the kind of old-school Teutonic metal that makes you want to punch a hole through a wall purely to see if it can be done. Then came Airbourne, who approached the evening with the subtlety of a brick through a pub window. The Australians are incapable of doing anything quietly. Why would they? Their entire musical philosophy appears to be based on the principle that guitars should be played as if somebody has just stolen your beer. By the time Priest arrived, the audience was primed. But Priest weren't interested in simply replaying the past. Yes, the classics were there — and yes, they remain enormous. “Turbo Lover” turned the arena into one giant eighties flashback, while “Panic Attack” proved that the newer material doesn't sit awkwardly beside the old armoury. It belongs there. Then Halford started singing. Jesus Christ! The man is 75 years old and still possesses a voice that sounds like somebody has installed a jet engine in his throat. “Victim of Changes” was the serious business. The room changed. The drunken celebration briefly gave way to something approaching awe as Halford navigated those impossible vocal peaks with the authority of someone who has spent half a century making the laws of heavy metal and then refusing to obey any of them. And then came “Painkiller.” This is where things got stupid! The opening riff detonated across the arena and suddenly 9,000 people were behaving like they'd been handed the keys to a particularly dangerous vehicle. Heads were banging. Fists were flying. Voices were shredded. Somewhere in the upper reaches of Roig Arena, a parent was probably explaining to a teenager why their ears were ringing. The encore brought “Electric Eye”, followed by “Living After Midnight”, which turned the whole place into one gigantic, sweaty metal karaoke bar. And that's perhaps the great trick of Judas Priest. For more than fifty years, they've managed to make heavy metal feel simultaneously massive and personal. The riffs are enormous, the mythology is ridiculous, the clothes belong in a museum of magnificent excess — yet when thousands of people sing those songs together, it becomes strangely intimate. Last night, all of that history walked into Roig Arena wearing black leather and carrying a Flying V. Judas Priest didn't come to Valencia to celebrate their past. They came to remind everyone that their past is still alive, loud, dangerous and capable of shaking the fucking roof.

Cat Nova’s “I F L Y” moves like a slow-burning midnight transmission — sleek, atmospheric and built for the moment when the outside world disappears. At just over three minutes, “I F L Y” takes its time. The track doesn’t sprint for attention; it pulls you into its orbit with a measured, low-slung groove and a production that leaves plenty of breathing room. There’s a deliberate sense of space here, giving the track a nocturnal, cinematic quality rather than going for instant, disposable pop gratification. The 67 BPM pulse gives it a languid swagger, while the production gradually layers tension and texture around the central hook. It feels intimate without becoming fragile, polished without sanding away all the interesting edges. And that’s where Cat Nova gets it right. “I F L Y” has mood by the bucketload, but it isn't simply wallpaper. There’s movement underneath the surface — subtle rhythmic shifts, atmospheric detail and enough sonic weight to keep the track constantly ticking over. It feels designed for headphones, late drives, dimly lit rooms and those slightly dangerous hours when your better judgement has gone home. There’s also something refreshingly confident about the restraint. Cat Nova doesn’t throw every available production trick at the listener. Instead, “I F L Y” understands that sometimes less noise means more impact. The result is a stylish, dark-edged piece of modern pop/electronic songwriting with a strong sense of identity. It’s the kind of track that doesn’t necessarily demand your attention from across the room — it waits until you’re close, then quietly gets under your skin.“I F L Y” is cool, controlled and seriously atmospheric. Cat Nova has made a track that knows exactly what time of night it belongs to. For more information: Cat Nova

From 1 September, the walls of BUKOWSKI CRAFT BEER BAR in Russafa will become home to Black, White and Blues All Over, a powerful photography exhibition by acclaimed blues photographer Philamonjaro and curated by The Music Mole Magazine. And forget polite gallery photography. This is the blues — raw, human, battered around the edges and impossible to fake. Philamonjaro’s connection with the music runs deep. His journey began as a teenager in Chicago when, aged just 14, he spent four dollars to see Muddy Waters perform at his high school, with Koko Taylor and Willie Dixon also on the bill. That first encounter opened the door to a lifelong obsession with the music, its history and the people who carried it forward. Since then, his camera has taken him deep into the world of blues — from Chicago and the legendary Chess Records to Clarksdale, Mississippi, Buddy Guy’s club and countless stages, clubs and festivals. His photographs capture artists including Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon, Billy Branch, Super Chikan, Blind Mississippi Morris, Tommy Castro, Nikki Hill, Robert Finley, Tab Benoit and many more. But this exhibition isn't simply a collection of pictures of famous musicians. It is a photographic journey through the bloodline of the blues. Philamonjaro’s work explores the people, places and stories behind the music — the musicians, the keepers of oral histories, the clubs, the crossroads and the cultural connections that stretch from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago and, ultimately, across the Atlantic. His own story has now come full circle. Having spent years documenting American blues culture, Philamonjaro is now living in Spain, where he has discovered another chapter in the long history of the guitar and its journey across cultures. And there is no shortage of atmosphere at Bukowski. Located at Carrer dels Tomasos 17 in Russafa, the craft beer bar has already established itself as a natural home for Valencia’s alternative music and arts community, with its deliberately unpretentious, music-loving atmosphere and strong connection to local culture. The exhibition will officially open on Tuesday, 1 September, with an opening party from 7pm. The evening will be a chance to meet Philamonjaro, talk photography and blues, and meet the people behind The Music Mole Magazine, who have curated the exhibition. Come for the photographs. Stay for the conversation. Grab a beer. Talk blues. Talk guitars. Talk photography. Talk music. Because this isn't an exhibition about the blues viewed from a safe distance. It's about getting close enough to hear it.

HELP NEEDED: TWO OF ÒSCAR BRIZ’S GUITARS STOLEN Valencian musician Òscar Briz has been left without two of his most important instruments after thieves broke into his home and stole the guitars he uses to make a living. Valencian singer, songwriter and guitarist Òscar Briz has issued an urgent appeal for help after two of his guitars were stolen from his home during the night. The stolen instruments are a Godin LGX SA and a Rickenbacker 330 FG — two distinctive and relatively uncommon guitars that should be immediately recognisable to anyone familiar with the instruments. Briz, one of the long-standing figures in the Valencian music scene, says the theft has hit particularly hard because these are not simply valuable possessions: they are the instruments he works with and the tools that allow him to make a living. Briz has spent four decades writing, recording and performing his own music, first with bands including Banderas de Mayo and C.O.D.A. and subsequently under his own name. Writing about the theft, Briz appealed to musicians, collectors and music fans to keep their eyes open for the guitars if they appear for sale online. “Last night my two best guitars were stolen from my home.” WHAT WAS STOLEN? GODIN LGX SA Distinctive Godin LGX SA electric guitar Stolen inside a beige fabric guitar bag, which is already fairly worn and deteriorated Briz describes the guitar as uncommon RICKENBACKER 330 FG Fireglo finish Thinline semi-acoustic electric guitar Maple body and set-in maple neck Caribbean rosewood fretboard with dot inlays 21 frets 629mm scale 41.4mm nut width Schaller tuners Two Hi-Gain single-coil pickups Approximately 3.6kg Stolen inside a black hard case The Rickenbacker in particular is a highly distinctive instrument, and its Fireglo finish and black hard case should make it easier to identify if somebody attempts to sell it. KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN This is where the music community can make a difference. If you see either guitar appearing on Wallapop, Milanuncios, Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Reverb or other second-hand sites, don't assume it's a legitimate sale. Take a screenshot, save the listing and pass the information on to Òscar Briz and/or the police rather than confronting the seller yourself. The same applies to guitar shops, rehearsal spaces, second-hand dealers and musicians: if someone suddenly turns up trying to sell a distinctive Rickenbacker 330 Fireglo or a Godin LGX SA in suspicious circumstances, take notice. Briz's music has been a fixture of the Valencian scene for decades, and his catalogue stretches across numerous albums and projects. His current work continues that long-running relationship with the guitar as both songwriter's instrument and working tool. So this isn't simply about recovering two expensive guitars. These are working instruments belonging to a musician whose livelihood depends on them. If you have any information whatsoever about the guitars, particularly a suspicious online listing or someone attempting to sell either instrument, please contact Òscar Briz directly or pass the information to the relevant authorities.

Crawlers have been through the wringer. The whirlwind rise, the viral hits, the debut album, the tours, the headlines, the split with their label and the inevitable question of what happens next. Their answer is TURN OFF THE TV — a four-track statement of intent that sounds less like a comeback than a band reclaiming its own identity. The Warrington trio of Holly Minto, Amy Woodall and Liv May return with the kind of conviction you can't manufacture in a studio. Their new EP is rooted in the same emotional honesty that built their following in the first place, but there's a noticeable sense of clarity running through these songs. Crawlers aren't trying to recreate where they've been. They're working out exactly where they want to go next. The title track may be absent from the four-song tracklist, but TURN OFF THE TV is very much the mission statement. AFRAID TO DIE, STAY ALIVE, COOL and final single ALL WE HAVE IS US form a tight, emotionally charged run that refuses the modern addiction to distraction. The closing track is the EP's emotional centre, confronting the numbness of endless scrolling and artificial interaction with something far more complicated — actual human connection. It's that human element that makes the release hit hardest. “ALL WE HAVE IS US” isn't interested in pretending everything is fine. Instead, it wrestles with isolation, emotional detachment and the strange modern habit of running from the very thing we need most: other people. The result is a song with genuine emotional weight rather than manufactured angst. And that's where Crawlers are at their most convincing. They aren't selling misery; they're turning difficult experiences into something communal. The band's own story mirrors the EP's themes. After having to rebuild their foundations following their departure from their record label, they found themselves returning to the reason they started making music in the first place. Their fans, meanwhile, remained firmly at the centre of the operation. That makes TURN OFF THE TV feel bigger than a simple collection of songs. It's a reset button. Five years into their journey, Crawlers sound more certain of themselves, not less. Holly Minto, Amy Woodall and Liv May have taken the chaos, pressure and bruises that come with being a young band in the modern music industry and turned them into fuel. Their declaration that they want to be “a community” rather than simply a band isn't marketing fluff — it's baked into the music. The timing couldn't be better. With BBC Radio 1 support already behind them, critical love from Kerrang!, Rock Sound, DIY and DORK, and upcoming shows supporting Pale Waves before a headline date at London's Village Underground in November, Crawlers are stepping into their next chapter with plenty of momentum. TURN OFF THE TV doesn't sound like a band asking for permission to start again. It sounds like Crawlers remembering exactly who the fuck they are. For more information: Crawlers

With just over a month to go, the countdown to Visor Fest 2026 is officially entering the danger zone — the good kind. On September 25 and 26, Marina Norte in València will become ground zero for two days of heavyweight alternative rock, indie, post-punk and guitar music, with a line-up that looks increasingly like someone raided the record collections of an entire generation and somehow persuaded everyone to come to the same party. And frankly, we’re not complaining. Visorfest confirms the festival will return to La Marina de València with its deliberately old-school approach: one main stage, no clashes, no sprinting between venues and no choosing between two bands you actually want to see. The idea is beautifully simple — turn up, find a decent spot, get a drink, and watch the bloody concert. The 2026 edition has assembled eight seriously heavyweight names across the two days: Friday September 25 gets things moving with Ocean Colour Scene, The Damned, New Model Army and Hoodoo Gurus. Ocean Colour Scene arrive with the added ammunition of the 30th anniversary of Moseley Shoals, while The Damned are celebrating half a century of punk-rock mischief. New Model Army bring their famously intense alternative-rock catalogue, while Australia's Hoodoo Gurus add a glorious dose of garage-pop swagger. Saturday September 26 might be even harder to resist, with Manic Street Preachers, RIDE, Gene and The Wannadies. The Manics need little introduction: decades of huge songs, political bite and arena-sized ambition condensed into one of Britain's most enduring rock bands. RIDE, meanwhile, remain one of the defining names of the shoegaze generation, bringing those enormous walls of guitar and beautifully bruised melodies to the waterfront. Then there's Gene, appearing for their only Spanish show of the year, alongside Swedish favourites The Wannadies — which means anyone expecting Visor to simply recycle the obvious hits of the past is going to have to think again. And that's really the point of Visor. This isn't a festival designed around TikTok moments, VIP influencer compounds or a ridiculous timetable that requires military-grade logistics. Its whole philosophy is built around something increasingly radical: watching bands play music. The organisers describe Visor as a festival that combines the best of a festival with the best of a live venue, giving every act the space to play without overlapping sets. It's an approach that makes particular sense with a bill like this. These aren't artists you want to see for 25 minutes before legging it across a field to catch somebody else. There are anniversaries everywhere you look, but Visor isn't simply turning the past into a museum exhibit. The Damned are still making noise. RIDE remain creatively active. The Manic Street Preachers continue to write and record. New Model Army are still ferociously relevant. Hoodoo Gurus remain one of Australia's great live exports. Gene's return has generated serious interest in the UK. This is music with history, certainly — but it is also music that still has somewhere to go. The festival has also revealed its DJ line-up, with Eneida Fever! and Luis Bonias taking care of Friday night, followed by Alesa DJ and Mario Oldies on Saturday. Once the guitars stop, the records keep spinning. Day tickets are now available, meaning you don't necessarily have to commit to the full two-day experience — although looking at the Saturday bill in particular, that might be a difficult decision to make. Marina Norte gives Visor something plenty of festivals would kill for: València in September. The Mediterranean is right there, the city is five minutes away, and the whole thing takes place with the sea lurking around the edges of the experience. It's a very different proposition from spending two days trapped in a field somewhere wondering whether that brown liquid in your plastic cup was ever technically beer. With just over a month to go, the stage is set. If your record collection was built somewhere between 1980 and 2000, September 25 and 26 may already be looking suspiciously like your diary's most important weekend. For tickets and more information: Visorfest

Villena is not supposed to sound like this. It is supposed to be August: hot, dry, slightly delirious, the sort of place where the sun sits on your skull like an unpaid debt and everybody moves at the speed of someone carrying a paella across a minefield. Instead, for four days, Villena became a giant, sweat-soaked amplifier. The XX edition of Leyendas del Rock arrived with the subtlety of a brick through a church window and left behind more than 60,000 people, a town full of metalheads, battered eardrums, empty beer glasses and enough black T-shirts to blot out the Alicante sun. The festival had promised its biggest edition yet. It delivered the kind of ridiculous scale that makes you wonder whether somebody accidentally booked an entire continent. More than 60 bands. Four days. Multiple stages. International crowds. A substantially expanded production. And, hovering above the whole thing, the slightly insane fact that this festival has now been doing this for twenty years. Leyendas del Rock isn't merely a festival anymore. It is an annual migration. And Villena is the promised land. The 2026 edition ran from August 5–8 and had been built around a frankly obscene collection of heavy artillery: Helloween celebrating 40 years, In Flames on a Spanish festival exclusive, Slaughter To Prevail, Godsmack making their Spanish debut, WarCry, Sepultura on their final Spanish show, Black Label Society, Arch Enemy, Savatage, Heaven Shall Burn, Deicide, Stratovarius, Nothing More and enough additional firepower to make the average Spotify algorithm file for early retirement. And then there was the heat. Oh, Christ, the heat. Leyendas is the sort of festival where your first beer is a beverage and your fourth is a medical intervention. The sun beats down on the Polideportivo Municipal while thousands of black-clad pilgrims shuffle between stages, desperately seeking shade, water and the next riff. Yet somehow that is part of the ritual. By late afternoon the festival site resembles a travelling heavy-metal city. Leather. Patches. Beards. Corpse paint. Football shirts. Viking costumes. Kids wearing Judas Priest T-shirts three sizes too big. Grandparents standing beside teenagers. Someone dressed like a medieval executioner buying a bocadillo. This is not fashion. This is anthropology. And, crucially, it is friendly. That is one of Leyendas' great strengths. For all the volume, all the testosterone, all the blastbeats and Satanic iconography, there is remarkably little bullshit. The crowd comes here to have a good time. People help each other. Strangers talk. Bands are discussed like football teams. Somebody has always got a spare bottle of water. The metal family, it turns out, is enormous. This year's audience came from more than 30 countries, with the festival even introducing shuttle services between Alicante and Villena specifically to accommodate international visitors. But let's get to the noise. Because this is where Leyendas earns its crown. Slaughter To Prevail arrived with the subtlety of a collapsing factory. Alex Terrible and company delivered the kind of deathcore assault that makes the human neck question its career choices. The brutality was immediate, physical and gloriously stupid in exactly the right way. Within minutes, Villena was bouncing. Then came Sepultura, carrying the emotional weight of a farewell that actually means something. Their final Spanish appearance gave the set an extra charge, but there was no museum-piece reverence here. This was Sepultura doing what Sepultura have always done: turning heavy music into something physical, political and feral. Black Label Society brought the whiskey-soaked American side of the equation, with Zakk Wylde looming over the proceedings like a particularly angry biker who has wandered into a cathedral and decided to install a Marshall stack. And then there was Arch Enemy. Alissa White-Gluz remains an extraordinary frontwoman, but the whole band was operating at frightening precision. Riffs landed like machinery. Drums hit with industrial violence. The crowd responded accordingly, thousands of heads moving together until the entire field looked like one enormous organism having a very bad day. That was Leyendas at its best: technically immaculate but emotionally primitive. Godsmack provided another major moment, their first appearance in Spain, while the bill's broader spread meant that the festival never became trapped inside one narrow definition of metal. Dark Tranquillity, Of Mice & Men, Northlane, Mushroomhead, Lèpoka, Saratoga, The Baboon Show, Nothing More and Stratovarius all pulled the festival in different directions. That variety matters. Because four days of one flavour of metal would turn even the most committed warrior into a man hiding behind a food truck. Instead, Leyendas kept changing shape. One minute you're watching deathcore.The next you're hearing power metal. Then melodic death metal. Then classic heavy metal. Then something weird enough to make you question whether the sun has finally cooked your brain..... And somewhere in the middle of all this, Villena itself gets involved. This is perhaps the cleverest thing Leyendas does. The festival doesn't stay inside the Polideportivo. It leaks - Into the bars, restaurants, streets.The acoustic concerts in the town centre once again brought musicians and festival-goers into the heart of Villena, creating an altogether different atmosphere from the giant stages. At night, the town becomes a strange parallel universe. Metalheads sit outside bars drinking cañas beneath ancient architecture. Someone is inevitably playing guitar. Someone else is wearing corpse paint while ordering dinner. Families walk past people in battle jackets. The whole thing feels less like an invading army and more like an unusually loud family reunion. Then you walk back towards the festival and somebody is screaming into a microphone about death. Normal service resumes. In Flames were one of the weekend's defining performances, moving effortlessly between their melodic past and heavier modern material. They have the rare ability to make thousands of people who know every song feel as though they are discovering the band all over again. And then came Helloween. Forty years of history. Four decades of riffs. A back catalogue that could keep a festival going until breakfast. By the time they reached “I Want Out”, the Polideportivo had ceased being a venue and become one enormous human karaoke machine. Thousands of voices joined together, arms raised, heads banging, beer flying, every generation of Helloween fan apparently represented somewhere in the crowd. It was exactly what a festival finale should be. And yet perhaps the most impressive thing about Leyendas 2026 wasn't any individual band. It was the sheer scale of the operation. For its twentieth anniversary, the organisation expanded the infrastructure, increased stage provision, doubled the grandstands, enlarged food and drink areas and added services designed to cope with the expected international audience. The festival still feels like somebody genuinely loves heavy music and has somehow been allowed to build an enormous playground for everyone else who does. There are rough edges. Of course there are. The heat is brutal. Distances between stages can turn into endurance events. The sheer number of clashes means you're going to miss something brilliant while watching something else brilliant. And anyone expecting an air-conditioned boutique festival should probably reconsider their life choices. But that isn't the point. Leyendas isn't designed to be comfortable, it's designed to be alive. And this year it was very, very alive. More than 60,000 people passed through Villena across four days, setting a new attendance record and giving the festival its biggest production to date. The impact went well beyond the venue, with local hospitality, shops and businesses benefiting from the influx of visitors. That's the thing about Leyendas. It has become part festival, part pilgrimage, part temporary city and part annual nervous breakdown. And somewhere between the first guitar chord and the final Helloween chorus, you realise why people keep coming back. Because metal is not dead. It is not even particularly interested in behaving itself. It is standing in the middle of Villena in 40-degree heat, wearing a black T-shirt, drinking an overpriced beer, screaming the words to a song written before half the audience was born. And nobody wants it any other way. The XX edition has now gone into the history books. But the organisers have already pulled the pin on 2027, with Architects, Mercyful Fate and Alestorm among the first names announced, alongside more than twenty other bands. Tickets are available now and the are selling fast! 2027 is coming at us as fast - see you down the front! For more information: Leyendas Del Rock 2027 Words and photos: Rhyan Paul

September is looking seriously loud at 16 Toneladas, with Valencia’s beloved rock’n’roll bunker lining up a month that jumps effortlessly from garage and punk to blues, post-punk, soul and British indie. The programme kicks off with The Flamin’ Groovies on September 3 — a band whose DNA runs through decades of garage rock, power pop and unapologetic rock’n’roll. Expect guitars, attitude and absolutely no interest in behaving themselves. September 5 brings Lespurna + Fatiga, with Lespurna presenting Quan Tot Acabe, their first full-length album and final concert before stepping away from the stage. Fatiga join them for what promises to be a suitably ferocious night of Valencian punk-rock. Then things keep moving. Desert Vipers hit the venue on September 11, followed the next night by Daniel Higiénico y la Quartet de Baño Band — proof, if anyone needed it, that 16 Toneladas has never been particularly interested in musical boundaries. September 18 sees Deke Dickerson + Los Torontos bring their rock’n’roll, roots and rockabilly swagger to town, before Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne Band take over on September 19 with a serious dose of piano-driven blues and rhythm & blues. For anyone who likes their music darker, Actors arrive on September 20 with their brooding Canadian post-punk. It's the kind of booking that makes perfect sense in a venue where loud guitars and darker corners have always felt at home. And then there’s Nik West on September 25, followed on September 26 by Brit Festival by Neon Collective, promising more than two hours of British indie anthems spanning Oasis, Blur, Coldplay, Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys, David Bowie, The Smiths and Franz Ferdinand, with Karl Sound DJ opening the night. The beauty of the September programme is its complete lack of predictability. One night you're knee-deep in garage rock; the next you're staring down a blues piano, getting swallowed by post-punk or singing along to British indie classics. That’s 16 Toneladas doing what 16 Toneladas does best: keeping Valencia’s live-music bloodstream pumping, one sweaty, noisy night at a time. September isn't easing us back into autumn. It's kicking the door in! For tickets and more information: 16 Toneladas