Beers in hand we parted the sea of long hair, body piercings and leather to get a good view of the stage, the lights throbbed, the smoke billowed and Thrashtorno let rip with guitars blazing. Just a quiet evening on the seafront at El Puertito in Guimar for the Goymar Fest of rock and heavy metal.

Myself and The General had both been a previous year on the way back from football in Santa Cruz so had a good idea what to expect. The venue was an outdoor concrete sports court and the music had started at 2 in the afternoon and was set to go on until 2 am. Coming into Guimar the road sides were parked tight with cars but we headed to the beach area by Club Nautico and found a suitable slot. The large expanse of sand was peppered with a few wild revellers enjoying a drink and some special cigarettes, the cool breeze was very welcome after another scorching day, some of the fans must have been pouring with sweat in the afternoon wrapped in their denims.

At this point you may be thinking wild hairy rockers beer and a free festival, sounds like a recipe for a riot, well things are a lot more laid back in Tenerife and there were no police anywhere and just one low key security guard on each entrance to the performance area. There was quite a mix in the crowd, some were clearly curious tourists and a few old gits like The General and me but everyone was friendly and welcoming. There was one wild fan who kept charging at the stage and his fellow revellers during the Thrashtorno set but after several attempts to guide him out and reason with him he melted into the night. Thrashtorno , real locals from Guimar,lived up to their name, loud no nonsense thrash metal, at one stage their guitars dissapeared under cascades of hair as they lost themselves in their music.

The next band on, didn’t get their name, had a bit of a punk influence and were all the better for it, as we watched the swirling mosh pit rise and fall one of the organisers sold us some raffle tickets. One of the prizes was a free tattoo, could have been interesting if I won it, maybe I could have Club Deportivo Tenerife inked on a very intimate place or maybe I would have to settle for CDT. At the end of the second bands set they did the rafle draw on stage, a bit bizarre as they were most concerned to get all the winners before carrying on with the music. With the brief lights up and rest in the music I was able to scan the crowd and appreciate some of the rock chicks although there were a few more hefty ladies with piercings in all sorts of places.

Next up were Guerilla Urbana from La Laguna, a wild mix of traditional rock, punk and metal, they had quite a following and several of their fans body surfed over the crowd and pushed through the flimsy barrier to get on stage, at one point they did a great version of The Who’s I Can’t Explain. By the end of their set all pretence at a band audience divide had gone out of the window and the stage groaned as they bounced up and down singing a delightful little ditty about paying the Pope a not so friendly visit – very topical in Spain at the moment. By then, gone midnight, a good few hours had passed and happy to have sampled some alternative entertainment we left the venue and headed back south with loud kerrrangs ringing in our ears.