The Azkena Rock Festival programme with the wildest rock in a concert hall inside the festival, Trashville.

It’s time to turn the amp up to 11. One of the most anticipated moments for the Azkena Rock Festival public, the rock & roll festival par excellence, which will be held on 20th, 21st and 22nd June in Mendizabala, Vitoria-Gasteiz with Queens Of The Stone Age, Band Of Horses, Sheryl Crow, Jane’s Addiction, Glen Hansard, who moves his performance to Saturday, and many more bands. Today we present the Trashville programme. But what is Trashville? 

Trashville is a festival within the festival, the place where the line between audience and stage is blurred, with a venue setup that takes us back to those dive bars where rock & roll was forged from the ground up, as the wild and unbridled genre that it is. It is the party in the devil’s mouth that has inspired the artist Raisa Álava to create this year’s poster. A joint where you can get your head into the most danceable rock and move to the rhythm of garage, surf, rockabilly, hillbilly, riffs at impossible speeds played with guitar, bass, drums and even a washboard by artists who are used to dressing up in masks, bandages and even sheets. It’s the closest thing in our times to a swamp-side outlaw club. A corner where the experience goes beyond and is felt from head to toe. A place where you can say that what happens in Trashville, stays in Trashville. 

Headlining the Trashville 2024 lineup are The Mummies with a chaotic show of a defiantly raw, lo-fi sound who heavily influenced 90s garage punk from California. Les Greene, Grammy-nominated for voicing Little Richard’s character in the film Elvis (2022) and undoubtedly one of the most prodigious voices we can enjoy today, will bring back the sounds of the 60s with a mix of soul, funk, and R&B. And to top it all off, Los Sírex, a revered band from 1959 whose anthem ‘Si yo tuviera una escoba‘ (If I had a broom) has been eternally engraved in the history of Spanish rock. 

During the three days of the Azkena Rock Festival, the main Trashville tent will also feature: Jo Carley and The Old Dry Skulls with their chilling touch of vaudeville; the talented Belgian artist Ghalia Volt, a guitarist with a distinctive voice and a great passion for blues and rock; The Bank Robbers, the rockabilly project which reunites Marcos Sendarrubias and Isaac González, recalling the times of The Nitemares; and the power trio from Madrid, Tiburona, infectious riffs, explosive spirit and a no holds barred discourse. 

The Kongsmen, with their rabid gorilla masks and an R&B combo made up of renowned and experienced musicians from Barcelona, compete for the award of best dressed against the perforated sheets of the vibrant Funtasmas. With discourse straight out of a B horror movie and using traditional American folk instruments, Old Time Spooks will turn Trashville upside down, as will Ukelele Joe & His Hula Shakers with frantic rhythms that draw from punk rock, garage, and surf. 

The nights at Trashville go on until dawn thanks to the expertise of its top DJs, at the service of a tireless audience deserving of the best musical selection. This year this responsibility will fall to Juan de Pablos y sus alumnos Runaway, an epic alliance between the legendary Radio 3 presenter and the Bilbao band The Runaway Lovers; Foroazkenarock DJs, celebrating 20 years of the Spanish rock scene’s most veteran and unique forum at the hands of its founders; and Clara Lobo aka DJ Wolf-A, the host of the Azkena Podcast in her role as a music selector, will be mercilessly throwing out hits. Pep Tones, Iker Discofagia, La Guerrero, Eloy R.B, Sr. Lobo and AK Pintxadiskos round off the list of DJs at the festival. 

“Trashville is a hot, sweaty, uncomfortable cubicle that smells of the guy next to you, which on another occasion you likely wouldn’t enjoy. Everything is how it shouldn’t be, and yet you love it all the same.”

Azkena Podcast