Guieldu at the Street Feast of Avilés 2024

Avilés

We brought the "Comida en la Calle" in our hometown to a grand finale.

East­er Mon­day once again show­cased the most fes­tive and com­mu­nal spir­it of Avilés. Among all the cel­e­bra­tions held in the city, the Bol­lo Fes­ti­val is one of the few that tru­ly pre­serves its authen­tic Asturi­an iden­ti­ty. Orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed in 1893 through the ini­tia­tive of Dr. Clau­dio Luan­co and his cir­cle of friends, the fes­ti­val has con­tin­u­ous­ly evolved over time. A prime exam­ple is the Street Feast (Comi­da en la Calle) which, although it feels as if it has been around for­ev­er, was launched in 1993 to mark the fes­ti­val’s cen­te­nary and expand its reach. Since then, the Street Feast has grown year after year, gain­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty and draw­ing ever-larg­er crowds.

The 2024 edi­tion once again brought thou­sands of peo­ple togeth­er in an atmos­phere where the city nat­u­ral­ly shares the cel­e­bra­tion: while din­ing tables lined the streets of the his­toric cen­ter filled with empanadas, tor­tillas, cured meats, and thou­sands of liters of cider, younger crowds gath­ered in Fer­rera Park to cel­e­brate in their own way.

Amidst the bus­tle and elec­tron­ic music DJs at every cor­ner, it became clear that Avilés need­ed a sound­track wor­thy of its her­itage on that day. Indeed, talk­ing about Celtic music in Asturias with­out men­tion­ing our city would mean over­look­ing half of its his­to­ry. Avilés holds a very spe­cial bond with folk music, boast­ing an end­less well of musi­cians who have been rein­vent­ing tra­di­tion­al music for decades. In Avilés, folk and Celtic music are cre­at­ed, pro­duced, lis­tened to, and lived to the fullest.

To prove it, Guiel­du took the stage at Plaza de España to close out the fes­tive day. The per­for­mance turned into an ongo­ing dia­logue with the audi­ence, who danced giraldil­las, muñeiras, and above all, the tra­di­tion­al cir­cle dance deeply root­ed in the city’s his­to­ry. This rhyth­mic, ances­tral chain dance echoes oth­er cir­cle dances across the Atlantic arc, much like Bre­ton dances, where peo­ple join hands to dance togeth­er as one community.

See­ing the crowd sing along to some of our songs was the ulti­mate reward. When peo­ple sing your lyrics back to you, the music no longer belongs sole­ly to you: it becomes shared her­itage and weaves itself into every­one’s mem­o­ries. That is the great­est gift we could ever receive for our work.

Per­form­ing at home and feel­ing the warmth of our peo­ple on such a land­mark day remind­ed us once again that tra­di­tion­al music reach­es its fullest mean­ing when shared out in the streets.

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