Guieldu at the Arcu Atlánticu

Gijón

Celebrating the return of the Arcu Atlánticu festival to Xixón

The sea is part of Xixón’s iden­ti­ty. Not only its land­scape, but also its his­to­ry and its way of con­nect­ing with the wider world. Its port turned the city into a place where goods, peo­ple and ideas came and went, with­out los­ing its dis­tinct­ly Asturi­an char­ac­ter. It was from this com­bi­na­tion of roots and open­ness that the Arcu Atlán­ticu Fes­ti­val was born in 2012, dri­ven by Car­los Rubiera and Xosé Nel Ries­go, two fig­ures close­ly con­nect­ed with Asturi­an cul­ture and the Asturi­an­ist move­ment. From the out­set, the fes­ti­val set out to make Xixón a meet­ing point for the cul­tures of the Atlantic, with a pro­gramme that reached far beyond music.

It is worth not­ing that, just two years ear­li­er, Xixón had regained its mar­itime con­nec­tion with Nantes-Saint-Nazaire, in his­toric Brit­tany. For a few years, the fer­ry once again phys­i­cal­ly linked the two Atlantic shores. In 2024, after sev­er­al years away, the Arcu Atlán­ticu returned, and Guiel­du was part of its programme.

The venue cho­sen for our con­cert on 1 August has a his­to­ry of its own that is well worth explaining.

The Antiguo Insti­tu­to is one of Xixón’s most dis­tinc­tive build­ings. Its ori­gins go back to the Real Insti­tu­to Asturi­ano de Náu­ti­ca y Min­er­alogía, found­ed in the late 18^th cen­tu­ry under the influ­ence of Jovel­lanos. It was cre­at­ed in the spir­it of the Enlight­en­ment: to give Asturi­ans access to sci­en­tif­ic and tech­ni­cal knowl­edge, includ­ing sub­jects con­nect­ed with nav­i­ga­tion, and to help open Asturias up to knowl­edge and to the wider world.

More than two cen­turies lat­er, the build­ing is still devot­ed to cul­ture and learn­ing, albeit from a very dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive. And it was here that we had the chance to play that night.

The con­cert itself was also arranged in an unusu­al way. The band played on a small stage, almost at the same lev­el as the audi­ence, who were seat­ed fac­ing us. We knew this could make for a dif­fer­ent kind of con­cert: clos­er, more inti­mate and more relaxed.

Even before we start­ed, it was clear that the place was going to be packed. The queue to get into the con­cert stretched around much of the build­ing, while the audi­ence filled not only the ground floor but also the upper gallery of the Antiguo Instituto.

What we did not know was that the sit­ting would not last very long. As the con­cert went on, peo­ple began mov­ing to the rhythm of the music, the applause start­ed to fol­low the songs and, even­tu­al­ly, the audi­ence was on its feet, jump­ing and join­ing in with us.

The return of the Arcu Atlán­ticu was great news for Xixón, but also for Asturi­an and Atlantic cul­ture, and we were delight­ed to expe­ri­ence it from the inside. We hope this new chap­ter has a long jour­ney ahead and that the fes­ti­val con­tin­ues to grow as a meet­ing place between Asturias and the Atlantic regions.

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