The Stranglers on stage at the International Faro Bike Festival

The Stranglers are to top the bill at this year’s International Bike Festival in Faro.

The dates have been announced and between 16 and 19 July thousands of bikers will arrive for fun, music, the wet T-shirt competition, brotherhood and a wide range of mild narcotics.

Organisers at the Moto Clube de Faro have a knack of attracting bands of a certain vintage and The Stranglers fits the established bill.

The band's 70s and 80s hits such as No More Heroes, Golden Brown and Get a Grip on Yourself, earned the British band lasting fame as one of the punk rock era’s most memorable sounds.

Portugal’s offerings at this year's festival include Blind Zero, Sam Alone with The Gravediggers and hard rock band Hot Stuff.

Tribute bands are in the roster with Guns 2 Roses and the Red Hot Chilli Pipers and with the Spanish 'Los Soft'.

This year’s event was by no means certain to go ahead as the organiser and attendees have expressed increasing concern at heavy-handed Portuguese police activity over the festival period.

This year the festival was close to being cancelled but finally the official announcement was made "on behalf of the best interests of motorcycling and the region, despite all the difficulties."

The "repressive control” by police led to management asking the Minister for Internal Affairs to intervene to ensure the event could continue without armed police patrols and frequent roadside inspections of visitor’s motorbikes.  

Meetings were held with local police, Faro council and the organisers to iron out difficulties and reduce what many foreign visitors see as ‘a police state in action.’

The official announcement of the 34th festival included a thank you for "the support expressed by several interested parties for wishing to continued this event dedicated to motorcyclists and to the city of Faro, whose purpose is to honour people’s passion for bikes."

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranglers

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