To the north of the Bidasoa, the most urban musical activity seems to have been slower in time than in the more industrialised and cosmopolitan cities of the southern Basque Country. The duo formed by Peio Ospital and Pantxoa Carrèrre was one of the most popular. They recorded their first album in 1969 in Toulouse, but always in a folk rather than purely pop style, with songs composed mainly by the also performer Manex Pagola. Another duo from Iparralde would be the one formed by two Eñaut: Etxamendi and Larralde, also still in the key of traditional lyrical folk. But people like Etxahun tried to imprint, in tune with the social thrust of French pop, which mainly attracted young people, a greater rhythmic character on a legacy as bucolic as that of the Ipartarrean Basque song, particularly the most influential: that of Zuberoa. The Errobi group or Niko Etxart and his Ximinorak-Minxoriak, already in the 1970s, would be key experiences in the modernisation of Ipatar popular song.
Pamplona experienced this early pop-rock era with curious activity. There was a dynamic flow of ‘festivals’, such as the Sunday morning programmes at the Teatro Gayarre. The premises of Radio Popular, owned by the Dominican friars, or a nearby assembly hall of a nuns' school, were venues for Saturday afternoon concerts. The Juniors played pop with some ranchera derivation, given the ability of their singer from Falces to reach the high tones of the Mexican song, and recorded some EP records. The elegant Condes had a penchant for Barcelona's Sirex. The younger Breks were for a while the great local hope. The Duendes dared to play the Beatles' She's A Woman in its original language. Los Ánakos, with a girl at the front and a crazy keyboard player imported from Catalonia, did the same with the Rolling Stones' Satisfaction.
The restless and pioneering journalist from Caparroso, Joaquín Luqui, who created the weekly Ritmorama section in the conservative Carlist newspaper El Pensamiento Navarro, helped a lot to push the local scene in Iruña, and together with other colleagues, he was the protagonist of advanced radio programmes (Discofilia or Requeterritmo, on the also Carlist Radio Requeté) and was the first promoter of the influential state publication Disco Expres s, in the style of the British music weeklies, until he was hired from Madrid by El Gran Musical de la SER (Sociedad Española de Radiofusión), the radio station where he continued.