Two nights, a formidable roll call of alternative-rock favourites and more than six hours of live music each evening: Visorfest 2026 brought a distinctly 80s and 90s soundtrack to La Marina de València — and proved that nostalgia can still sound remarkably fresh. Last weekend, Valencia music fans were treated to a couple of music-packed nights at La Marina de València, as Visorfest 2026 brought together an unusually strong collection of British, American, Australian and Swedish alternative-rock names. With music beginning at around 6:30pm and continuing until well after 1:00am, this was a festival that certainly made the most of its two-night format. There was little sense of padding or filler. Instead, the organisers delivered a succession of established acts whose songs had provided the soundtrack to a generation of alternative, indie, post-punk and Britpop listeners.

The festival’s focus was firmly on much-loved bands of the 1980s and 1990s, but Visorfest avoided feeling like a museum of musical nostalgia. Several of the bands have continued recording and touring, while others have returned to the stage after lengthy absences. The result was a mixture of familiar songs, renewed energy and the occasional feeling of witnessing something genuinely rare.

FRIDAY: HOODOO GURUS BRING AUSTRALIAN JANGLE ROCK TO VALENCIA

Friday opened with a particularly special appearance from Sydney, Australia’s Hoodoo Gurus, who were making their first Spanish touring appearance.

Led by founding member, songwriter and frontman Dave Faulkner, the band delivered a robust set of hard-driving guitar rock that blended jangle pop, new wave, garage rock and the kind of melodic college rock that became one of the alternative sounds of the 1980s.

Faulkner was joined by fellow early members Richard Grossman on bass and Brad Shepherd on guitar, providing a direct link to the band’s formative years.

Songs including Tojo, I Want You Back, Bittersweet and Like Wow – Wipeout demonstrated why the Hoodoo Gurus’ combination of catchy melodies, sharp guitars and slightly offbeat humour has endured.

There was also a sense of occasion surrounding the performance. The band are celebrating the 40th anniversary of their influential 1985 album Mars Needs Guitars!, with a deluxe two-disc reissue on the horizon.

For a Spanish audience getting its first opportunity to see the group in this setting, their appearance was one of the festival’s genuine discoveries — or, for those already familiar with them, a long-overdue reunion with an old favourite.

NEW MODEL ARMY: INTENSITY AND POLITICAL EDGE

British post-punk veterans New Model Army then shifted the mood considerably.

Frontman and founding member Justin Sullivan remains an imposing and charismatic presence, while guitarist Dean White, bassist Ceri Monger and drummer Michael Dean attacked their instruments with the physical intensity that has always characterised the band’s live performances.

New Model Army’s music has never fitted comfortably into a single genre. Punk, folk, post-punk, hard rock and politically charged songwriting have all played a part in their distinctive sound.

Their performance of 51st State was particularly striking. Originally released in 1986 as a pointed comment on Britain’s close relationship with the United States — imagining Britain as America’s 51st state — the song demonstrated how political material can acquire new interpretations as circumstances change.

The set also included a barrage of punk and post-punk favourites, including Neat, Neat, Neat, New Rose, Machine Gun Etiquette, I Just Can’t Be Happy Today and History of the World Part I, alongside their haunting interpretation of Jefferson Airplane’s psychedelic classic White Rabbit.

It was an uncompromising set, and a reminder that some bands don’t simply recreate their past: they carry its energy into the present.

OCEAN COLOUR SCENE: MOSELEY SHOALS AT 30

Friday’s headliners were Ocean Colour Scene, bringing the first night to a suitably nostalgic close.

The Birmingham band’s 1996 album Moseley Shoals is now three decades old, and Visorfest provided the perfect opportunity to celebrate an album that became one of the defining British guitar records of the Britpop era.

The band’s blend of mod influences, soul, folk-rock and classic British songwriting was represented by songs including You’ve Got It Bad, The Riverboat Song, The Circle and, inevitably, The Day We Caught the Train.

There was something particularly appropriate about hearing these songs beside the Mediterranean at La Marina. For an audience that grew up with Britpop, the songs provided an instant time machine — but the response suggested that this was about considerably more than simply remembering the 1990s.

SATURDAY: FROM SWEDISH POWER POP TO BRITISH ALT-ROCK

Saturday continued the musical journey, opening with Swedish power-pop favourites The Wannadies.

Their bright, infectious approach provided an energetic start before the festival moved into darker and more muscular alternative territory.

Then came Gene, a particularly welcome inclusion for fans of British indie music. The band reunited after more than two decades apart, making their appearance at Visorfest something of a rarity.

Frontman Martin Rossiter remains a consummate performer. Animated and highly physical on stage, he moved constantly and appeared to feed directly from the audience’s response. There was little sense of a band simply revisiting its past: Gene’s songs were delivered with considerable conviction.

RIDE: PSYCHEDELIA, GROOVE AND WALLS OF SOUND

One of the weekend’s highlights came when the atmosphere shifted again with Ride.

The Oxford band’s neo-psychedelic, alternative-rock sound proved remarkably effective in the open-air surroundings of La Marina. Their music relies heavily on texture, layered guitars and rhythmic momentum, and live the songs took on a particularly powerful physical quality.

Early-career favourites including Future Love, Twisterella, In a Different Place, Vapour and Leave Them All Behind demonstrated the band’s ability to move between melody and extended waves of guitar-driven intensity.

They also reached into their more recent catalogue with Monaco and Peace Sign, from their 2024 album Interplay.

For longtime fans, there was the added attraction of seeing the original core line-up: Mark Gardener on vocals and rhythm guitar, Andy Bell on lead guitar and Steve Queralt on bass. Drummer Loz Colbert was unavailable for the Spanish dates, with a substitute drummer filling the position.

Ride’s set was a reminder of why their music became so influential during the late-1980s and early-1990s alternative-rock explosion. The sound may have been born more than three decades ago, but live it still feels expansive, immersive and surprisingly contemporary.

MANIC STREET PREACHERS: A SPANISH CIVIL WAR ECHO TO CLOSE THE FESTIVAL

Closing the festival were Welsh rock giants Manic Street Preachers, who provided an appropriately dramatic finale — and one with a particularly strong connection to Spanish history.

The band’s final number was their 1998 hit If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, a song inspired directly by the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and, more specifically, by a Republican propaganda poster used during the conflict.

The poster’s stark warning — “If you tolerate this, your children will be next” — was aimed at the British public during the Civil War. It reflected the Republican side’s appeal to Britain and other European countries to recognise the threat posed by fascism and to support the Republican cause.

The Spanish Civil War also had a profound international dimension. Thousands of foreign volunteers travelled to Spain to fight for the Republic as members of the International Brigades, including volunteers from Wales and elsewhere in Britain. The Manic Street Preachers’ own Welsh background gives the subject an additional historical connection: Welsh volunteers went to Spain during the conflict, with some losing their lives fighting for the Republican side.

The song itself was inspired by a 1938 Republican poster featuring a photograph of a child injured during the conflict. The image and its accompanying warning were intended to suggest that the consequences of tolerating violence and political extremism would eventually reach future generations.

Hearing the song performed in Spain therefore gave it an additional resonance. More than 25 years after its release, the historical roots of the song remain firmly connected to the country in which the events that inspired it took place.

As the band launched into the chorus, the audience joined in:

“And if you tolerate this, then your children will be next.”

It was a powerful finale to Visorfest — a song born from the political turmoil of 1930s Spain, transformed into a Welsh rock anthem in the 1990s and performed almost nine decades after the Spanish Civil War in the country whose history inspired it.

MORE THAN NOSTALGIA

Visorfest 2026 succeeded because it understood something important about nostalgia: it works best when the music itself remains alive.

Across the two nights, audiences heard jangly Australian guitar rock, politically charged post-punk, Britpop, Swedish power pop, neo-psychedelia and Welsh alternative rock. Some bands were revisiting landmark albums; others were celebrating long careers; others had returned after years away.

But the common thread was not simply age. It was songwriting.

These were songs that people had carried with them for decades — songs connected to particular periods of their lives, places, friendships and memories. Seeing them performed live, sometimes by the original musicians, created something very different from simply putting an old record on at home.

La Marina provided an impressive backdrop, and the long festival days allowed the audience to move between generations and musical styles without losing the central identity of the event.

For Valencia, which has increasingly become an important stop on the international touring circuit, Visorfest was another reminder that the city can accommodate major alternative-music events while offering something rather more special than a conventional festival setting.

Two nights, a formidable collection of bands and a soundtrack stretching from punk and post-punk through Britpop, psychedelia and power pop.

For anyone who lived through the 80s and 90s, it was a trip down memory lane.

For younger fans, it was a chance to discover why these bands mattered in the first place.

And for everyone else, it was simply two very long, very loud and thoroughly enjoyable nights of live music beside the Mediterranean.

Report by Phillip Solomonson

Photos copyright Phillip Solomonson/ ‘24/7 Valencia’

Manic Street Preachers photos copyright Luis Pérez Contreras

Article copyright ‘24/7 Valencia’