July Morning

We're at the Black Sea coast on the last night of June. Everything is building up to the sunrise.

This is Bulgaria’s ‘July Morning’ observance - somewhere between a counter-cultural musical festival, and a secular pilgrimage marking the start of July. It revolves around reaching the coast in time to meet July’s first sunrise.

This celebration has an unlikely origin story - a 1971 song, also called July Morning, by English rock band Uriah Heep.

Starting in Sofia, we make the road trip across Bulgaria to Kamen Bryag, one of Bulgaria's easternmost points, where the sun rises earliest over the horizon. Audio producer Carys Wall travels with friend Kami and Bulgarian musician and veteran July Morning attendee Milenita.

Uriah Heep still have a significant following in the Balkans, and the band’s late singer John Lawton performed at the celebration several times.

In the 80s, during the social and cultural restrictions of state-socialist Bulgaria, Uriah Heep and July Morning gained massive underground appeal, as a protest anthem. The festival grew from that – with fire, rock music, and Metal-inspired fashion.

Many attendees are long-time rockers who remember these protest origins. For others – revellers in their teens and 20s – Bulgaria’s July Morning celebration is a coming-of-age, a social event to mark the start of summer, and a chance to listen to really loud music.

Whichever way you look at it, it is a celebration of freedom.

As the sun peaks over the sea, the song blares from speakers.

There I was on a July morning
Looking for love
With the strength of a new day dawning
And the beautiful sun
And at the sound of the first bird singing
I was leaving for home
With the storm and the night behind me
And the road of my own
With the day, came the resolution

With thanks to Kmetal Tsonko Tsonev, Alex Boreva, Katie Revell, Andrea Morán and Cicely Fell.

Producer: Carys Wall
Executive producer: Dave Howard
Sound designer: Jonathan Webb
A Bespoken Media Scotland Production