Sonic Blast 2026. Riffs, chaos and a seaside festival worth crossing the atlantic for. After a few years of seeing the lineups and pining from across the Atlantic Ocean over my lack of attendance, the 2026 SonicBlast lineup was too good to pass up.
SonicBlast 2026 – Day One
Viana do Castelo, Portugal – 6-8 August 2026
Words And Photography: Tim Bugbee
There are many different forms of music festivals, and I prefer the ones that are not sprawling, artificial cities set up over a weekend, where the stress of getting and being there and wanting to see bands you came for can be a significant detractor. Forgone festivals like All Tomorrow’s Parties or Psycho Las Vegas were about the ideal for me. Manageable crowds, small enough that you can make random connections with other festival-goers early and often over the course of the event.
Roadburn still carries that flag, as do the various Desertfests. But over in the US, ask a person about a music festival, and they will probably answer with Coachella or Bonnaroo or another similar soulless, corporate-driven event with little continuity to the lineup other than trying to maximise profits.
Flights and lodging were booked. What a shitshow the Lisbon airport is. The only place where a 2.5-hour layover still had me running to my now-closed gate. Thankfully, they let me board. I arrived at the semi-bustling and beautiful seaside town of Âncora, ready for what looked to be a wide-ranging and highly interesting lineup stretched over three and a half days.
Stoner rock with riffs capable of crushing skulls, foreboding Doom Metal, frenetic Hardcore, Black Metal, psychedelia, electronically-fueled dance music, Thrash Metal, feral garage rock, there was something here for everyone, and plenty of great options for most.
If you asked 20 random people who their top three bands were that drew them to this northern Portugal coastal town, odds are good you would get 20 completely different answers.
Fighting jet lag, I decided to skip the pre-fest event of four bands and a DJ that started at 22:20 and concluded sometime in the early morning hours to conserve my energy for the main event. The weather couldn’t have been better. Perfectly blue skies and moderate temps (18-25 °C) with a gentle breeze that did not screw up the sound.
Heading in from my lodging was an easy 15-20 minute walk along the beach and dunes, taking a left to descend to the festival grounds while the Atlantic beckoned on your right. The stage setup was ideal, two large stages side by side, and quick turnovers meant that there were no conflicts.
A smaller third stage was situated to the right of the main stage, over near the myriad food vendors (pro tip – get a late-night bifana), and the covering afforded some shade relief from the unrelenting sun, while still offering good viewing of the main stage.
SonicBlast – Day One
Day One kicked off with Madrid’s Free Ride at the third stage, wearing obvious influences of Fu Manchu on their sleeves. As more people slowly filtered onto the grounds, the many moving parts of a festival quickly became apparent.
Elephant Tree and Clamm swapped slots as Jack Townley had suffered an epileptic seizure and was not cleared to fly from the UK, so the band marshalled a hasty game plan to play without their lead vocalist and guitar player as a trio and pulled it off brilliantly.
They got a little help on one song when Ritual King singer Jordan Leppitt came out to lend a hand and larynx. Well done, mates.
Melbourne’s Clamm were up next, another band in what seems to be an endless supply of Australian bands with a sneering in-your-face punk edge, tinged with a post-punk approach.
According to the International Monetary Fund, that particular flavour of Aussie rock is now the country’s fourth leading export.
California’s Trash Talk stalked out on stage with singer Lee Spielman saying that the band did not do so well with high stages and separation from the crowd. So after about 30 seconds on stage, he jumped down and spent the remainder of the set at the rail or in the crowd.
To say he was the match that lit SonicBlast’s day one fuse would be an understatement. The circle pit was at maximum velocity for their entire set. At one point he had the entire crowd crouching down, instructing them that “When the drum hits I wanna see you act like it’s the first time you ever heard music.” Unsurprisingly, chaos soon erupted.
The standard was set, and no following band wanted even a whiff of mailing in their performance. For anyone who has seen the black-hooded sleaze merchants Midnight, that was never in question. Coming out on stage, Athenar quickly tossed a few cans of Super Bock into the crowd, with opener Unholy And Rotten, a good signifier of what they trade in, the muscular backbone of Motörhead rewired with the genetic code of Thrash Metal.
A few songs later, Athenar was rueing his decision and asked to barter a bottle of water for the beer cans he distributed. “I gave away my water, I gave away my Super Bock, next I’m giving away my anal virginity.”
Not sure if his attempt at learning Portuguese was in earnest, but he did want to know how to say “Fuck you, you cocksucker from Ohio.” You definitely cannot stop steel.
Frankie And The Witch Fingers started with an unstoppable groove to their sound and then kept stepping on the accelerator. The Osees are a stepping-off point, and Dylan Sizemore’s guitar strap set-up preference does not dissuade those Dwyer vibes, but they take that blueprint into new directions.
Their set ended with Sizemore climbing up the PA scaffolding at the second stage and launching into the crowd, a precursor of things to come.
As the sun retreated, Deafheaven came out to the “You are sleeping” dialogue sample that The Smiths used for Asleep. No one was sleeping for very long as the band dialled back to their wild-eyed Black Metal sound, singer George Clarke eschewing the more mannered singing style of 2021’s Infinite Granite with a sound one might make after washing down a handful of rusty thumbtacks with a pint of kerosene.
Aside from The Flaming Lips, I cannot name another band from Oklahoma City, but Chat Pile put that city back on the musical map with a vengeance when 2022’s God’s Country came out of nowhere and recharged the noise rock world.
Famously known for riffing on obscure movie trivia between songs, vocalist Raygun Busch found the audience not well-versed in the filmography of Michael Wilcox. The band plays an acerbic brand of noise rock, with consistent themes about injustice and the struggle to just survive. Check out Why if you are not familiar with their songs.
Mixing up the adrenaline onslaught delivery method was Snapped Ankles. The British quartet came out in Jawa costumes run through a shredder, headlamps affixed to their foreheads and obscuring their identities.
Highly danceable, the group display a heavy African rhythmic sound with what looks to be homemade or heavily modified electronic instruments. Ostensible leader Austin decided certain members of the crowd needed a closer look at these contraptions, so he clambered over the barricade and mingled with the people.
“Hello, we’re Weedeater. Without the Weedeater.” Wisconsin’s Bongzilla are definitely the Midwest answer to that band, and Muleboy does not deny the obvious parallels of singing about weed with a raspy voice amid relentless riffs.
My energy level drained, I made my way back to the hotel and could still hear the songs as clear as day when I reached the street across from the beach. If there is one thing you do not want to forget at SonicBlast, it is a good pair of earplugs.
