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And this is nothing like a massive music festival.
But strange times mean we're crying out for strange ideas, and this is actually quite a good one: The province with the smallest capital city in the whole of Spain is set to rock the block today and tomorrow, putting itself on the map (it needs to) and potentially getting up to 47 million spectators without having to worry about finding a park or stadium big enough. And you don't have to travel to join in.
You can't, anyway, because of the lockdown, but either way, it saves you petrol and means you can still have a drink while it's on if you feel like it.
Teruel, famous for its dinosaur park (Dinópolis), its ski slopes (Javalambre and Valdelinares), and its lovers (the local answer to Romeo and Juliet), makes up the bottom third of the north-eastern region of Aragón and is one of the least-populated provinces in Spain, few of its villages have more than 100 inhabitants and many do not even reach 30, some still have working donkeys, a handful don't even have internet. Its provincial capital, of the same name, home to just 35,890 people, is not much bigger than a small coastal town – it'd fit nearly three times into the cities of Cádiz or Jaén, four times into Huelva, almost five times into Castellón, five-and-a-half times into Almería, six-and-a-half times into Granada, more than 10 times into Las Palmas de Gran Canaria or Alicante, and – well, you get the picture. It's not exactly large.
For decades now, this rural province with its tiny capital has been screaming out to the rest of Spain that it exists. Teruel claims nobody remembers it's there – especially successive national governments, when it comes to funding. The oft-cited slogan, ¡Teruel Existe!, is also the name of a political party which, for the first time ever, gained a seat in national Parliament in the November 10 general elections last year.
It's a fine line between wanting to be remembered and properly funded, having a tourism industry just buoyant enough to keep its sparse and thinly-spread population in jobs and stop everyone of working and childbearing age from wanting – or needing – to leave, and becoming too well-known and popular to the point where it becomes built-up and its essence ruined. But Teruel is still working on the first part and, happily, seems a long way off ever letting the second part happen.
It may seem odd that, given its general description, Teruel province would be home to generations of musicians, bands, singers, rappers, DJs, songwriters, poets and film directors – but it is.
And over 60 of them have answered a call from its provincial government, the Diputación de Teruel, to stage a two-day music festival online for Easter Saturday and Sunday.
In fact, it was only due to be on the Saturday – today – but so many artists have put their names down that the Diputación has had to extend it.
What's on, who's on and when's it on: Your Saturday sorted
Kicking off at 11.00 this morning, the festival goes on until after midnight, then follows a similar timetable on Sunday, says MP for culture Diego Piñeiro.
Teruel Online Fest is partly to 'send out a message of encouragement and cheer' to people stuck at home, 'especially those in remote rural areas'; partly for entertainment to keep everyone amused over Easter, and partly to offer a 'window on the vast arts and entertainment scene in the province', Piñeiro explains.
A full playlist with videos will be kept and launched later on the Diputación's YouTube channel to ensure nobody forgets who these talented musical people are, what they sound like and, crucially, where they come from.
As well as the musical acts, a series of short films by Imago Entertainment and Yermas Productions will be produced throughout the weekend, and a demonstration of wrought-iron artwork by Nadie Art y Hierro.
After Piñeiro's 11.00 opening speech, a Gigantes y Cabezudos (literally, 'Giants and Bigheads') procession was scheduled – and is exactly what is says on the tin – before Rubia and Rosa's live 'twerking for beginners' workshop and then a children's storytelling session.
The next hour and a half, from 12.30 to 14.00, DJ Andrea Lugossi, DJs Despechadas Pinchadiscos, and DJs Midi Ex-Machina fill the lunch spot, before another hour of traditional Aragonese music and dance – the jota, with steps and folk costumes that remind you more of northern or central Europe than of Spain – with soloist Marcos Azuara, the Aires de Maestrazgo Group, Julio Latorre with Aires de Martín, and dancer José Antonio Pedrós (second picture).
Poetry to music takes you from 15.00 to 15.45, with writers Antonio José Caralps, Candela Vela, Nacho Escuín and Florencio Blesa reciting their works.
After this, a completely eclectic array takes you through to around 00.30 on Sunday morning – pausing for five minutes at 20.00 for the daily applause for the health service – with each artist performing for up to half an hour.
Another two-and-a-half hours of rock follows, starting with the Aragonese-style rock by Mecanismo de Kozai (third picture) and followed by mainstream rock, pop-rock and acoustic with Sergio Medina de Ocelot, Isabel Marco, Effe, and Kapi de Azero after the 'health service clap'.
Singer Joaquín Carbonell croons his own, bespoke songs from 20.30, then cover artist María C. Santos brings you versions of timeless and modern hits, Rocío Ro rocks the block, vocalist Marina Morales takes to the stage at 22.00, and An Extraordinary Quintet offers 30 minutes of jazz and blues until Las Cebras Colorás take over the scene.
Chocabeat (fourth picture) rap group is up next, and the night rounds off with DJ Fernando Moreno on the mixing desk.
Easter Sunday: Starts off pedestrian, then gets loud
Traditional stuff and visual arts fill the 'long' morning – a repertoire of songs telling the story of the 'Lovers of Teruel', jota-style, with the Amigos de la Jota group, reproducing their earlier performance at Teruel city's Marín Theatre, opens the festival at 10.45, and is followed after half a hour by a 10-minute recital with the Gaspar Sanz marching band from Calanda, a village famous for its Good Friday drummers.
Storytelling for children follows before a short theatre production (quarter of an hour) at 11.30, a circus show, and then another two theatre plays at noon and at 12.30, and monologues at 13.00.
Concha Lasso gives a dance show at 13.30, then pop artist Izabel takes to the stage at 14.00 and the Gaspar Sanz acoustic guitar group half an hour later.
Singer-songwriter Mari Carmen Torres gives a quarter-hour show at 15.00, as does pop-rocker María Lorenzo straight afterwards, and all the others on stage for the rest of the day perform for 30 minutes each, some in pairs, sharing their slot.
These include singer-songwriters Fernando Mallén and José Antonio Gargallo, heavy metal group Donax Trío with Celia & Covi (fifth picture) doing cover versions of popular hits, pop singer Lydia Vera at 16.30, a puppet show by Proyecto Caravana at 17.00, pop-rocker Virginia Esteban at 17.30, Amigos Luciopercas (blues and rock) and Rafa Almela (blues) at 18.00, Araboas – an Aragonese folk music group – at 18.30, country rock by The Drunken Cowboys at 19.00, and rock band Fixed from 19.30 until the daily 'health service appreciation' applause.
The festival then goes on until 22.00, continuing with rock music by Malaspulgas, Disonanzia, Hormigón Armado, and Malagana.
Folk group Lugh takes over at 21.00, and the Lovazz duo winds up the festival with jazz and Bossa Nova.
How to watch it
First of all, no tickets are required; it's free. How many music festivals cost you absolutely nothing? And there's no charge for camping, either. As long as you have a tent for your front room – or just a bed somewhere in the house (we assume you do) for when it's all over, then you're already at Glastonbury without the mud. Or the smelly port-a-loos (well, if that's not the case in your house, we'd rather you didn't tell us). Plus, supermarkets are open normal hours today (that's 'Coronavirus lockdown normal', so typically closing at 19.00 or 20.00 rather than the usual 21.00 or 22.00, but 'normal' as in, not restricted or shut altogether because it's Easter) so you can grab yourself some drinks and whatever ingredients you need to make the usual hamburgers, hot dogs and chips. Plus, it doesn't matter if it rains; it's still going ahead.
To get there, go to Dpteruel.es and click on the poster for Teruel Online Fest, or type in the full address: Dpteruel.es/DPTweb/la-diputacion/departamentos/gabinete-comunicacion/teruel-online-fest.
This will give you the full schedule and, depending upon what time of day it is, click on the hyperlink that's currently showing, and it'll take you straight to the live YouTube clip, or to the artist's Facebook page where the performance will be streaming as you enter.
No doubt the whole experience will add some new favourite singers, DJs, musicians and the like to your list, and a few new names for you to make a note of, so that if you hear they're on at a fiesta or concert near you later in the year when live music starts to happen offline again, you can make a beeline for it.
After all, these local bands and artists do get around. They may not be in the charts, or have albums on sale in the mainstream hypermarkets, department stores or the FNAC, but they often travel across their home province and to their neighbouring or next-but-one provinces, meaning their names become familiar over time. Some of them also crop up at some of Spain's largest 'real-life' music festivals – Medusa Sunbeach (Cullera) SanSan (Benicàssim) and Benicàssim International, Primavera Sound (Barcelona), Arenal Sound (Burriana), Starlite (Málaga), and so on.
So you may not have heard the last from these talented Teruel natives yet.
And to find out more about Spain's annual calendar of music festivals (some of which have been called off, but others still with a chance of going ahead) read up on them here.
Photograph 1: A 'typical' music festival in Spain (Teruel's this weekend is an atypical one). The picture shows Benidorm Low Festival, which normally takes place in July (to be confirmed), from the event's eponymous website
Photographs 2 and 5: YouTube
Photograph 3: Mechanismo de Kozai on Twitter
Photograph 4: Cover picture of Chocabeat's Trascendencias album
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