Mad Cool Festival: Lorde, JENNIE & The Best Sets From the Madrid Weekender
Categoria: Musica
The festival celebrated its 10th anniversary with a stacked 2026 lineup.
Por Billboard | 13/07/2026
For the past decade, Madrid’s music scene has run through Mad Cool. First held in 2016, the festival has not only become a staple of the city’s cultural calendar, but a worthy addition to the European festival circuit, on a par with Lisbon’s NOS Alive, Budapest’s Sziget as well as Olso’s Øya, and Denmark’s Roskilde. Music’s biggest names have used the festival as a key stop on their touring schedule with Olivia Rodrigo, Dua Lipa, Sam Smith all hitting the festival in recent years alongside rock giants Metallica, Queens of the Stone Age, The Killers and more. This year’s celebrations were suitably stacked, with Foo Fighters , Florence & The Machine , Zara Larsson , Lorde , Pulp , Kings of Leon , Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds among the leading headline acts at the festival’s 10th anniversary. Elsewhere David Byrne , Moby , Interpol , The Black Crowe s and more made appearances. That array of artists – and four days of guaranteed sun – helped Mad Cool attract fans from all over Europe. Plenty of British and Irish attendees joined the Madrid locals for that stellar lineup and a festival in one of the continent’s superior capital cities. Here, fine food, drinks and a jovial, lively atmosphere seep into everyday life; the home nation’s football team progressing to the semi-finals of the FIFA World Cup 2026 certainly didn’t hurt either. The festival’s streamlined experience (five well-curated stages and a compact, walkable site) meant that repeat attendees from the local vicinity abroad are bountiful: merchandise from the festival’s previous editions are dotted around the site as proudly as band tees and – of course – football strips of their respective nations. As 2026’s edition comes to a close, these were Billboard U.K. ’s highlights from the 10th anniversary edition of Mad Cool festival.