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I contracted some sort of Primavirus so progress on the next installment has been slow. One last Fat Dog piece: I did just remember this morning that they covered Benny Bennassi’s “Satisfaction” and that was easily the best part of their set.
Still adjusting to being home and I'll write a full review at some point. A few favorite moments: Thursday's main stage run of Amyl > VW > Pulp > Justice and then capping it off with Herensauna. Double fisting Cava at Troye on Saturday. All of the rain/lightning sets and still having the energy to dance during Róisín Murphy on Sunday. Leaving out a ton, but goddamn that was fun.
Post by aburnedhill on Jun 7, 2024 13:49:44 GMT -5
feeling a tad ill as well so have just been snoozing since I got home on Tuesday. What an unforgettable first trip to Spain! So much music it was overwhelming. Only complaint was the startling lack of free water and the policing of water bottles, it is like they wanted people to pass tf out. Like I get it we are all adults but think of the children!! They would block the path to the water refill by Cupra and the Maybelline pop up like every night for an extended period of time. Just a huge headache to have to defiantly walk past the line of security just to grab a glass of water.
ANYWAYS Top sets of the weekend for moi were Amyl, Charli, Jessica Pratt.
The thunder and lightning storms took the wind out of our sails a bit but we still caught "Down By the Water" til the finale for PJ which was magic like none other. Then watching Mitski have everyone hunker down to see her was pretty special. SZA was also a big highlight for me and my homegirl. The plan is to be back in 2026 and at Glasto or Fuji Rock Fest in 2025. Also! For the in the city shows, Sweeping Promises blew me away. Got to snap a pic with the lead singer and chat for a sec
I contracted some sort of Primavirus so progress on the next installment has been slow. One last Fat Dog piece: I did just remember this morning that they covered Benny Bennassi’s “Satisfaction” and that was easily the best part of their set.
BBC6 New Music Fix played that on their 5/30, very good
Somebody fire the production people at Porto. They had to cancel the entire slate of acts on the Vodafone stage because it couldnt handle the weight of the Justice production. Who the fuck doesnt bother to check in advance what the deal is? Totally sucks for everyone. And thats the same stage Pulp is scheduled for tomorrow.
Of course, Primavera “officially” starts on Wednesday when the grounds open for the Inaugural but Thursday always feels like the real first big boy day. Get ready to stand in the shadows and chug those Red Bulls, because this is your first 12+ hour day! Fortunately, I was “prepared” by sleeping in a practically windowless, featureless room for 8 hours and waking up feeling refreshed enough. Theo and I popped over for bocadillos and cafés con leche before popping over to the festival grounds. (If you really want to flex your Duolingo muscles, the question you may want to ask your waitress if she gives you a receipt to sign with nothing attached is “¿Tienes un bolígrafo?” But she disappeared before I had the chance. Bummer.) In my opinion, having done it twice, your first stop on Thursday at Primavera should always be the Auditori, the impossibly shaped triangular auditorium next to the Parc grounds. It is a spacious, comfortable, dark venue that’s a perfect place to see quieter acts out of the hot sun. The first year I went, Julien Baker played to a packed 4 PM audience, but this time it was different - no less because the first act, Ángeles, Victor, Gloria & Javier weren’t quiet at all. AVGJ is a Spanish supergroup made up of four people from different genres - flamenco, jazz, electronic - to create, well, electronic music with jazz drumming that has super distinct flamenco singing over it. After some more digging now, it appears their name is a reference to Cánovas, Rodrigo, Adolfo & Guzmán, a 70s Spanish pop supergroup who Wikipedia tells me were often compared to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Wow! That’s a lot to live up to! Fortunately, though, as you might have been able to tell by that stylistic description, the group operates in a much more contemporary milieu, focusing less on the harmonies you might expect of references like that in favor of unique playing with dynamics, bombastic rhythms, and a hell of a lot of belting when required. Curiously, I felt the album wasn’t super representative of this; the live performance sounded a lot darker, louder, and to be frank more interesting than the album let on. I heard rumblings from others in the group that they’re breaking up after a final series of performances, but I hope that’s not true.
Anyway, that was a lot, so next I saw the end of Viuda, a Spanish kind of gothy pop-punk band. I somehow remember nothing of this but my videos tell me it was fine. So we’ll move across the stage to Voxtrot, a band I only started taking seriously as a band to see about two weeks ago when the schedule dropped. I didn’t really know much about them other than that they’re from Texas, started in the early 2000s, and were described as “indie pop”, a descriptor which can mean just about anything for a band of that time period. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they fit way more on the kind of jangly C86 end of the spectrum, all guitars, more or less all upbeat, with singer Ramesh Srivastava giving just enough swagger to kind of remind me of a Hamilton Leithauser type. (And with just enough specific vocal inflections to remind me of a Ben Gibbard type. Whether or not that’s a good thing depends entirely on your tolerance of Ben Gibbard.) They were one of a few bands who seemed bit an unsure why anyone wanted them to play together again but were grateful to do so, and I’m grateful I got to saw them!
Now. I don’t meme about them death, so it may not be entirely clear but I really love Arab Strap. As Days Get Dark was my favorite album of 2021 and their latest, I’m totally fine with it 👍 don’t give a fuck anymore 👍 (whose title I included in its entirety for obvious reasons) is really, really good too in spite of the fact that it takes the Black Mirror joke of “what if phones but too much?” literally, and all of this is to say nothing about their very different but still excellent 90s/00s output. I saw them at Pitchfork 2016 and I liked it a lot. Ok you probably know where I’m going with this so let’s get it over with: this was not very good, and weirdly not really for any performance reasons. There were sound mixing issues that seemed both unintentional (Aidan Moffat’s vocals were so quiet at the beginning?) and intentional (you couldn’t hear any of the synths at all in favor of the drums??) that virtually no other set at Cupra I saw during the week had. Including Jai Paul! Add to the fact that it was bright daylight out for this and it just didn’t quite add up. I don’t think they really could’ve scheduled this differently - no way the band would’ve gone for a 4 AM Plentitude set or whatever and no way was the festival going to conflict this band with Pulp or Beth Gibbons, so I’m going to try and make some lemonade out of this and say that the song selection was pretty good and we got a cool appearance of “Girls of Summer” in a 45 minute set. But I was a bit let down by this.
Oh, I can’t almost believe I forgot to mention: in front of Theo and I at Arab Strap, there stood a guy who was sensually eating a hot dog in front of us, his eyes closed, his shirt off, facing us, basking in the sun in total bliss. Nobody enjoyed this festival more than he did.
At this point I wanted to catch Lambchop but was a bit hopped up after double fisting Estrellas during Arab Strap. I was also in the mood to bounce around between sets. I caught up with hoffm83n at Plenitude for Mannequin Pussy while Theo went to go wait in line for Boiler Room. I saw Mannequin Pussy did Drunk II early in the setlist and thought ah what the fuck, it’ll be a good time. I got a bit of the short end of the stick here: the crowd swelled unexpectedly but it was full of talkers and I did get some funny looks for screaming along to “I STILL LOVE YOU, YOU STUPID FUCK!!!” so I took off. I’ll give it my all again at Pitchfork for a crowd of hipsters who actually deserve it.
Before cutting over to Lambchop, I stopped for a quick Red Bull before heading into the Auditori and caught a bit of Dillom, a guy I had to google five times to make sure I was seeing the right person. He’s from Argentina and sounds like Machine Gun Kelly but worse. Just thought you all wanted to know that. Anyway I chugged my drink, went into the Auditori for Lambchop and wow I’m glad I didn’t wander too far away from this because this was really good. It was billed as a “solo piano” performance which was slightly misleading because Kurt Wagner was just singing and he was accompanied by a pianist. However, I didn’t mind this at all, because it put a ton of emphasis on the songs and lyrics themselves, with Kurt standing still in a suit the whole time on stage, letting out each phrase very carefully. A highlight was him covering obscure charity compilation song “Listening (to Lambchop by myself again)”, as was his pianist getting a turn on vocals to close out the show. This would not have worked anywhere else but in the Auditori. I’m so glad it’s there.
Afterwards I was in a bit of mood to wander so I walked over to catch a bit of Roc Marciano, who I’d always heard was a really good technical live rapper. He is! Unfortunately, the crowd was deader than I’d like so I headed over to Blonde Redhead, who I never really got into out of a couple of songs but wow I wish I just came straight over for this set because it was so good. Kazu Makino worked that stage like no other shoegaze band I’ve seen before, and the Pace Brothers were no slouches either, wailing on their respective instruments to make a lot more noise than you think there would be given the minimalist setup. Another wonderful surprise of the weekend.
Afterwards, I wandered a bit over to the warehouse. Tristan dragged me here once in 2019 to see Brat Star DJ set and it was a very cool venue then and now - then, it was a bit darker and felt more like an illegal rave taking place in a parking garage, now it’s lit up bright, with an insane soundsystem that’s liable to crack your spine in half from the vibrations of the speakers. Nazar was pretty good! Apparently hoffm83n has a regular correspondence with him on Instagram so this was one of the weekend’s highlights for him but personally from, even with earplugs I physically could not handle how much bass was coming out of the speakers during his set. Pablo sent a message that Amaarae’s set was good and I ducked out at the right time. Amaarae was really good! She remains one of my favorite Afrobeats artists which helps a lot, but I think live she’s pretty funny and brings a unique perspective to what Afrobeats looks like live. I arrived just in time to witness her bring several audience members engage in a dance contest. It was two gay guys and one woman who did an impressive voguing routine while wearing a floor length dress. You are going to be shocked to learn who won.
Afterwards it was time to head back to Cupra for Beth Gibbons. The crowd was shockingly light for this set (if I may get ahead of myself for a moment, there were more people at Atarashii Gakko than this) but no matter; everyone who was at this set knew what was up. Lives Outgrown is a pretty subtle album and the audience was sufficiently differential to that fact to allow the waves of sound from her shockingly large band wave over them. There were a lot of obscure instruments that got used once, there was a lot of unique things to listen for, and there was Beth Gibbons at the center, her smoky soprano taking center stage for these songs. She reminds me of a bit of PJ Harvey in a way: they both have big bands filled up with exceptionally talented players you can look up endless minutiae about, but no matter how much you try paying attention to anything else, your eyes are always going to be drawn back to the most singularly commanding presence on stage.
But enough reverence. It’s time to have some fun. I got confused trying to follow the directions of security on how to get to Mordor and it took me longer than I would’ve liked to get to see Pulp. I sang along to “Disco 2000” while approaching the main stages but didn’t see as much as I would’ve liked for my first time since I promptly marched over to the Estrella Damm stage to get as close as possible for Justice. Fortunately, I still had a pretty good view of Pulp even if I wasn’t able to take a good video. Jarvis Cocker sort of gives off the vibe of a big swing band leader live, with more players on stage than I was anticipating and way more steps for Jarvis to climb up and down on, lit up by a huge parade of flashing colored lights. But of course, the real flashing lights we all came for were from Justice. I spent the beginning of the set telling everyone to shut the fuck up, which led me to eventually befriending an Italian woman named Yaya, who curiously wanted me to scream with her at different high points in the set; I spent the rest of the set looking at the moving lights dangling from the top of the sage, wondering how the fuck Justice did that. I saw some post on the Justice subreddit that was broadly critical of the show since they’re relying more heavily on mixers now, which reduces a lot of potential spontaneity, but we have to be real for a second: on the 2017 Woman tour, Justice brought more synths an Ableton controllers with them just to play a few chords on one or two songs. Historically, Justice have taken the “less is more” approach with their live show, adding a bit more each time; this is the year they finally decided to take the “more is more” approach and they somehow managed to walk away with a light show of flashing rainbows that ends up being more technically impressive than Eric Prydz’ fake holograms. I know what I’m picking every time. Bonus points for randomly dropping samples of eight songs or so during the second half of Safe and Sound. That shit was so cool.
Of course, when you’re that hyped up on alcohol and caffeine, you gotta keep the party going. What better place to do it at than a Belgian black metal band’s set? Wiegedood wasn’t particularly great (Primavera should’ve booked Blood Incantation smh) ut I always love this festival’s commitment to booking 5-6 random loud ass bands each year and I always appreciate the chance to get up to some bullshit while watching a metal band of any stripe. In this case, that meant me, Bing, hoffm83n, and two random people trying to start a mosh pit and failing miserably. Obviously I would’ve liked to go harder, but the fact that we tried starting a five person mosh pit at a fucking black metal show and nobody was willing to join in is one of those hilarious indelible memories I’ll always carry with me long after most of my memories of this festival fade. Also, the fact I was wearing my gayest fucking outfit while trying to mosh doesn’t hurt either.
After Wiegedood we went up for A.G. Cook. I don’t know how I thought a live set of his would work but I wasn’t expecting him to just DJ his own songs. Unfortunately, I don’t think that setup really works for his music; I think I’d much rather see a couple people hitting drum pads or something just to emphasize how strange and alien his production can feel. But we stayed for most of his set and caught most of the rest of Herrensauna. At this point I was blitzed out of my mind enough where every five seconds or so I thought it’d be funny to make a joke about how it was cultural appropriation for women to be DJing a group designed to simulate what it’s like to be at a DJ set in a gay bathhouse. Its was not very funny, but everyone is entitled to a bit they’re not particularly proud of and this happened to be mine. Of course, this was my favorite DJ set of the weekend; it was high BPM techno through and through with a melodic edge to make it stand out more from the more boring sets of their Berlin peers. I took some shitty pictures with Theo on the Cupra seats before we headed back home way too late, oblivious to the fact we were about to be out even later for circumstances beyond our control the next day.
OK that seems like a sufficient enough cliffhanger for a story like 20 people on here already know. Talk to you soon!
By this point in the weekend, I felt fairly invincible. I had been getting sufficient enough sleep, I wasn’t feeling too terribly hung over at all, and I was eating enough breakfast and late night hot dogs to hopefully stave off anything terrible. Of course, this is all foreshadowing, but you don’t need to know that yet.
Theo went to go smoke and I was outside of our hotel with really nothing to do, so I headed back over to the Primavera Pro stage at CCCB to go see Nita, who on record sound a bit dreamier but live sounded a lot punkier. The stage area was also fairly empty as it was a couple days ago, with most of us clinging to the shade, but again they still managed to deliver quite an energetic performance in spite of that; the drummer in particular was banging so hard on his instrument that at one point his floor tom fell over, followed later by his sticks flying in the air, requiring him to slap his cymbals for the final song. I also want to give a shout out to the bartender here who lightly chided me for not bringing in a cup twice….and then never charged me for the cup either time. I wanted too tick around in the pace for the Argentine band Feli Colina, who looked like they had an interesting setup going (harmonizing vocalists, a whole array of unique percussion, a synthesizer…) but they took way too long sound checking so I have no idea what they were like. Bummer!
I headed over to the Parc to head back into the Auditori. I was hearing rumblings by this point that the line to get in was crazy long and that it wasn’t opening at its usual 3:45PM opening time. I got off the train and saw who was responsible: the huge gathered crowd of Lana fans, who continue to show up to these events in their best Flannery O’Connor cosplay, ready to scream along to their favorite songs about burning their ex-lovers with an almost-finished cigarette on the Santa Monica Pier before heading to church or whatever. (Just kidding Lana fans! She’s fine.) Fortunately, though, once the gates opened the crowd fanned out a little bit, but security had changed the lines to be more accommodating to single day tickets. Once this became apparent (because the signs are written in English and are color coded and either way, it’s not too hard to read them in Spanish), I switched lines and tried pushing my way inward towards the full 3 day pass line. However, this did not appear to satisfy one particular security guard, who kept manhandling me to get into the correct line. I was not thrilled about this but this was really the only logistical difficulty I ran into all weekend and it’s hard to be mad about just because of one asshole security guard. Oh well.
I wandered into the Auditori for Charlemagne Palestine, who I really liked, though opinions varied significantly. (Bing in particular was not a fan.) Today he performed his Strumming Music piece, which, if you are not familiar, is a famed 70s minimalist piece involving hitting similar notes on piano at various speeds over and over again to the point of almost induced meditation. At the end, he stood up, did some brief singing in Yiddish, clanked some wine glasses together, and that was that. Afterwards, he came out in the audience and gave a speech about how his goal with Strumming Music was to create music that sounded like synthesizer playing on a piano, so that was nice. A weird audience note: sitting next to me for a while were two German (?) teenagers (??) who were talking loudly, had their feet kicked up on the seats in front of them, and had their phone brightness turned up all the way. About two-thirds of the way through the performance, they got up…….and got closer to the stage. Baffling.
I wandered over to near the entrance to catch the end of Aiko el grupo, a perfectly serviceable Spanish punk band, and caught up with hoffm83n for Silica Gel, a Korean band whose live setup I still find fascinating. Each band member had their setup on a movable platform on stage but the only person who moved off of it was the lead singer, who commanded the stage on his own but curiously left everyone else looking like they were standing in an invisible glass box on stage, still doing their best to contort into their best rockstar moves. They were a bit heavier than most typical indie rock bands but I’m not sure I’d call it quite psychedelic; I really got the sense the band members listen way more to other non-rock music and yet that still manifests itself in music that’s in some ways pretty straightforwardly rock. Anyway, reading up a bit on them now, it’s curious since they’re a huge live sensation in South Korea but aren’t super well known elsewhere and aren’t doing as well on western streaming which can be quite friendly to K-rock bands (see: DAY6, The Rose). Much to consider.
At this point hoffm83n and I were desperately trying to score Justice tickets (we both succeeded), so we weren’t moshing as hard to Scowl as we should’ve been. But we were there, they were good as always; but we both moved on to see Chelsea Wolfe. Chelsea was really, really good and really, really well suited to the Auditori, which I’d never considered as an ideal location for heavy music like this before but worked out well with its capacity for atmospheric lights and super-crisp sound. Unfortunately, something about the seats in there makes me sleepy as shit, and I had to leave for my own sake. Well, that, and because I also wanted to to see Keanu rage the fuck out with Dogstar. I saw it. It was fine.
But that’s not what we’re here for! We’re here to talk about Troye Sivan getting a simulated blowjob on stage!
I’ll be honest: I’m not a huge Troye Sivan fan. I like a couple of his songs but generally his music doesn’t do a whole lot for me. But wow, what a performance. If you’re going to see a pop show at Primavera, this is the kind of level of spectacle you hope to see: lots of choreograph, lots of lights, a unique stage setup (with two platforms on either side of the stage), and doing the worst song mercifully first. I really thought Troye was going to go for a more minimal setup with a backing track but I was pleasantly surprised. I did think he’d do full drag for “One Of Your Girls” …somehow but getting in a Madonna corset was a close-enough substitute for the song (side note which I talked with pablo about: the big thing that takes me out of the vibe of the song is that Troye tries to flirt with a straight guy by saying “yes gawd” to him. What is up with that lmao!) but the sexiest moment of course comes at the end with “Rush” and Troye making out with a dancer for a solid 10-20 seconds. Hot!
I had my highest expectations of the night for Clipse. There was a lot less hype for this reunion than I thought, and after attending the Roc Marciano show it just generally didn’t seem that the Primavera audience’s heart is really in it for American rappers, but I still wanted them to deliver as much as they could. I got worried at first because the DJ played for 18 minutes at the beginning of the set and I’d been at shows where Push showed up really really late, but then Pusha and Malice came out and Push especially was firing on all cylinders, truly a showman at heart for a man who pretty consistently claims to not need rap at all. Malice wasn’t really on the same level energy-wise but he certainly wasn’t bad and I left the set perfectly satisfied. (I would’ve liked to see them do “Trill” but oh well.) The audience wasn’t super energetic for this performance either, but I really think rap shows are where the language barrier really comes out.
I snuck down to Cupra to catch Jai Paul; as I mentioned elsewhere this may have been the best time I’ve seen him to date. The sound was perfect (which he needs lol), his stage fright is basically gone by this point, the band got to do the full setlist. Perfect! Everything I need! Is Jai Paul the next Mariah Carey? No! But that’s fine. And speaking of fine, The National were also in fine form, delivering a start-to-finish perfect greatest hits setlist I have basically zero problems with. You’ve probably seen the National before, you don’t need me to feed you an opinion on them. Shout out to Olivia from Scotland and her friends, who I had a great time with at this set. They were especially delighted when I talked English ancestry and told them my ancestors were from Wigan.
I stuck around at Mordor for Disclosure. First things first: I am really, really glad they’re doing full live sets again with the synth pads and drum pads and all that. However, I spent 90% of this set having a fun conversation with pablo in the back and I don’t regret that at all. This is *still!* a super Settle-heavy set, and look, I’ve been going to Disclosure shows for over a decade now; I want to see them do Energy deep cuts damnit! Oh well. We marched over to the front to catch Arca. First of all: wow, Arca is really fucking hot. Have we talked about this enough? Yes? Okay. Unfortunately this set didn’t live up to my own personal expectations, but that’s not really her fault: I’d heard this was a really loud set and this wasn’t meant to be loud; it was designed to show off Arca the Pop Star. She strutted around on stage, did a lot of vocal heavy performances, with enough sufficient visual punch to make it worthwhile. I wish it’d been louder for my own personal satisfaction, but that’s fine.
Finally, we ended the night heading downstairs, with a quick stop at the top of Cupra to catch a bit of Tratratrax. I expected full Latin club music from this set given Nick León’s pedigree, and it wasn’t not that, but the one thing I forgot about Nick León that I’m reminding myself watching some Boiler Room sets now is that he also tends to play fast, loud, and energetic. And of course I love all that shit so I had a great time at this. But we had to head down to catch Lanark Artefax. I really, really wish I had gotten more videos of this set because I really liked it and I know I’ll want to remember more of it in the future. There were a lot of really unique synth sounds to listen to in a way that reminded me of Objekt’s sound design work but with enough of a techno edge to make it consistently danceable. At this point it was raining and there was basically no one in the audience, so it made it feel a bit more special. But of course, our time had come too, so we headed out. (I have a ten second video on my phone of me getting a panoramic view of the lack of a crowd at this stage and halfway through Theo appears in the background smiling very creepily. It’s extremely funny.)
Theo and I headed back to our hotel, making the hourlong journey back………..only to find the door to our building wouldn’t open no matter how hard we tried. We panicked more or less immediately, and Theo contact the owner of the property. We were exhausted and desperate by this point so we headed over to an area with a couple of hotels, begging them to give us a room to sleep in, but nobody was available. The woman came back over to the building and tried opening the door, which she did once successfully, closed afterwards, and then was unable to open again. What ended up happening was that another guy in the hotel left his key in the door on the other side which rendered it impossible to open. This whole ordeal took over 90 minutes and partially ruined the final day of the festival for both of us. Moral of the story: pay more money for a hotel in Barcelona lol.
I had good luck with a hostel in 2022. You’ll probably end up with other people also going to the festival.
it was a weird hostel type situation actually, we had a private room but as far as we could tell there was only like 4 rooms in the whole building? also it was only being ran by a single person
I have a Marriott Bonvoy account, I need to rack up some rewards points on it, next time I go to Spain I’m just doing that. (There’s luckily more of an abundance of good basic cheap hotels in Paris.)
I have a Marriott Bonvoy account, I need to rack up some rewards points on it, next time I go to Spain I’m just doing that. (There’s luckily more of an abundance of good basic cheap hotels in Paris.)
You can live like a king for about $800/week in Eixample. This was a two bedroom with a terrace. For like $200 more you could add a pool. Close to the metros, restaurants plenty, and supermacardo’s around every corner. It’s absolutely worth it to pamper during the day, imo.
That said, even my swank hotel didn’t have a 24 hour desk. You’d have to get the security to let you in. It was enough of a push to see the sun rise every morning for me.
Hmm unfortunately it looks like I have to finish up my thoughts on this, so here goes.
On Saturday, due to a lack of sleep and a perhaps copious amount of alcohol consumption the past [muffled] days, I woke up with a pretty brutal hangover. However, I was not going to let that stop me. I had places to be, random ass Brazilian indie bands to see! I trudged over to the festival, grabbed a veggie burger (truly my biggest regret of the festival, I truly have no idea *why* I wanted to get a vegan food option *now*), and sat down on the steps of Cupra just in time for..
Sophia Chablau e Uma Enorme Perda Tempo: Armed with nothing but a jaunty spirit and a video screen displaying a QR code with their fall European tour dates on it, Sophia Chablau and her band lived up to the hype I had built up for them in my head. I wish I had enough energy to go down and dance in front of the stage at this part of the day, but I knew I needed to save up the stamina for the big ones later in the evening. Sophia Chablau herself was notably delightful and charismatic in her stage banter in English and Spanish; pretty remarkable for a band exclusively singing in Portuguese. As always, I’d highly recommend you check out these Brazilian bands - their indie scene is truly delivering some great stuff right now.
Slow Pulp - I caught up with FH and his wife on the rail of this set for the second big Chicago band of the weekend. I’m not the biggest fan of Slow Pulp’s music (I sometimes wish it was either a bit more shoegazey or a bit more energetic, or maybe both) but it translated perfectly to a mid-afternoon festival set. The sound was a lot cleaner liver which I think really helped, as did, of course, their seeming joy to have a pretty big European audience. And they noticed the flag. Thanks Slow Pulp!
Depresión Sonora: Not really committed on where to go next, I hung around on the lower level for a bit. There seems to be this microtrend of notably gothy post-punk bands bubbling around out there, but unlike say Molchat Doma there seemed to be way more of a rap influence on this band, both in vocal delivery and on the sound, which I appreciated. But wanting to venture off, I went over to…
Lisabö: …another rare Spanish band that felt really old school Primavera. They had two drummers, something I usually don’t like, especially when they’re playing the same rhythm as they often were here, but this was loud as shit and compelling enough to become a surprise favorite for me.
Él Mató a un Policía Motorizado: This band also played the first Primavera I went to in 2019 and appear to be a perennial favorite of this festival, which is good for them. It was a good spot to chill out and eat my pizza, a much better food option for a hangover in spite of the fact that someone did try and steal directly out of my hands. (??) Anyway, the band operates in that same Slow Pulp-ish territory but with a bit more anthemic songwriting; I also wish they’d commit a bit more to the shoegazier end of their sound. But I had a good time at this.
PJ Harvey: By this time, though, the weather was starting to get a little dark and stormy, and by the time I made it to Mordor, Zeus was fully blessing us. However, as the Spanish don’t believe in weather evacuations due to cultural reasons beyond my understanding, PJ Harvey pressed on, doused at the front of the stage while the worst of the worst in the audience opened their umbrellas. Luckily, I had my emergency (read: shitty) poncho and was able to find a spot in a weird dip in the ground that no one else was standing in fairly close to the stage, so I had a great view of PJ and her band. As always, PJ brought a singular intensity to her performance; like Beth Gibbons she performs in the center of a big band but whereas Beth’s voice floats highly off into the distance, PJ Harvey intones deeply while staring right at you. The rain certainly helped set a bit of atmosphere, but my the setlist by and large speaks for itself, including “Let England Shake” included among the early set’s ballads and “50ft Queenie” in the punk back half, and thank god ending with “To Bring You My Love”, maybe one of the most ideal set-closing songs any artist has up their sleeve. Total perfection.
Mitski: I feel torn about Mitski. I really, really have not liked her last two albums but she’s made her fair share of great albums at this point and regardless of what sounds she chooses to pursue (wisely or not), this show made it clear she sees herself first and foremost as a storyteller and executes that role incredibly well. The last time I saw Mitski on the Laurel Hell tour, she mimed her way around on stage in 2014 St. Vincent or uhhh 1980-present David Byrne-style choreography around stage accompanied by a symbolic door. Here, it was just her on a platform, surrounded by her band, as she pushed her choreography to new and truly strange heights, notably panting like a dog on all fours while singing “I Bet on Losing Dogs”. The effect is disorienting and mesmerizing. This is the best, most refined version of Mitski’s show to date; shame it had to accompany that album.
Princess Superstar: But fuck me talking about one of the best performance artists of my generation! We need to talk about somebody who had a weird viral moment after her song was in Saltburn! The rain hadn’t subsided by this point, and I and my phone were soaked, but still Princes Superstar’s crowd managed to rage through a truly fascinating set. At first, Princess Superstar was accompanied on stage with four scantily clad dancers, all of whom were very talented and all of whom immediately started pussy popping as soon as they got the chance. She opened with her hit from Saltburn and did it two other times throughout her set, and halfway through brought out a *fifth* dancer, this time a voguer! I think Princess Superstar and Peaches bring a similar energy to their live performances, a sort of half-sung, half-rapped performance accompanied by a true entourage of unexpected side performers who would ordinarily drown out their leader’s performance if that leader wasn’t so captivating in the first place. Fully energized, I had to see another act just like this one, so I went to:
American Football: Just kidding! I actually wanted to see Bikini Kill but misread the schedule. It ended up being fine of course, but around this time Theo texted me he needed to meet up with me. We met at this set, where I caught the band as they were wrapping up. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen American Football but they hit the dreamy spot between shoegaze and emo just right, in a way I wish bands like Slow Pulp came closer to doing. Anyway, Theo caught up with me and unfortunately he was the first victim of our sleep situation and had to leave. But damnit, I wasn’t going to give in! I got a Red Bull and made it onward to…
Mandy, Indiana: First of all, I want to give credit to Mandy, Indiana’s screen background of a little DVD-style icon with their name on it bouncing around the screen. Second of all, this was pretty good but if anyone complains to you about electronic music not being real music because it’s all just button pushers (something I don’t think anyone has done since 2009 but all the same), point them to this band because the live instrumentation was so prominent in the mix it overpowered the interesting electronic elements, changing the sound a lot in the process. It wasn’t bad, but I did find myself wishing for a little bit more.
ATARASHII GAKKO!!: Fortunately, I got more pretty soon. I have this galaxy brain sociological theory that despite the fact that most K-pop that crosses over in the west aligns with pop trends (see also for a similar but unrelated trend: more K-pop artists using Afrobeats influences in their music), but most J-pop that crosses over in the west is weird one way or another: anime-adjacent bands, sci-fi innovators like Perfume, or bands with such huge personalities and memorable choreography you’d swear they were built in a lab for TikTok fame. ATARASHII GAKKO!! was never intended for TikTok because they debuted years before that app ever even gained ground, but if you’ve ever seen them do that viral live routine where de facto leader Suzuka grabs Mizyu’s pigtails as if she’s riding a motorcycle, you know what the appeal is. They of course did that routine here as well as every other eye-catching move they had, my personal favorite maybe being the unusual raised-fist, head-jerking two step of “OTONABLUE” which manages to be so simple and so odd simultaneously it ends up being deeply fascinating. Ultimately not every song of theirs is great, which is…interesting considering how long they’ve been around but in spite of all my theorizing and all my whining at the end of the day this was deeply, deeply entertaining and that’s all I ask for.
Charli XCX: The broad theme of this day ended up being charisma, of all different kinds: Sophia Chablau as classic rock frontman, PJ Harvey as intense bandleader, Mitski as pop choreographer spun into high art, Princess Superstar as cabaret queen, ATARASHII GAKKO!! as a girl group for a purely visual age. But nobody holds a candle to Charli XCX’s live charisma. Basically, no one does. In the past few years, Charli has gone back and forth between solo stage commander and dancer-accompanied almost-pop princess, but in the week before Brat Summer hard launched Charli debuted an only slightly modified variation of the stage show she’s been doing for five years, but with the kind of attitude no one can be taught. I’ve always loved Charli’s 2019-era two giant cubes and a microphone stage setup for its weird visual reference point setting the stage for a kind of, well, hyper pop, but this was different: a literal green screen torn down immediately to reveal nothing but flashing white lights while Charli stuts up and down on stage in sunglasses at 2:30 AM. And yet, these songs demand nothing else than that, especially with the release of Brat now firmly in the rearview mirror. But I feel lucky I got to see this show before the album came out: Charli XCX has elevated her cult stardom to arena levels, but she’s always been a club kid at heart, and I’m going to guess this is the last time you can see the club-oriented version of that show before the arena side takes over.
I wanted to see Pelada and Legowelt and Teki Latex but at this point I simply could not handle being awake anymore and decided to instead power nap at the hostel before my all too early flight back home. I raced back, took a 3 hour nap, and raced back to BCN on my flight back to Montreal, then Chicago. I passed out so hard on the plane back the flight attendants literally had to move me multiple times to push the carts through. Some final thoughts:
1) Having not been since 2019, the lack of Bits was disappointing, but whatever logistical difficulties they’d had post-COVID have disappeared. Barring some stage moves, this festival essentially felt the same as it did five years ago, which I appreciate.
2) If it wasn’t insanely expensive to fly to Barcelona, this festival would come pretty close to being the best bang for your buck probably anywhere in the world. If only this was happening in London or Paris or Reykjavik or whatever.
3) I mean…..that’s about it. The music speaks for itself. I want to give a special shout out to the Inforoo crew that really made this experience extra special since last time I was only here with my family: pablo, bing, FH, hoffm83n, and of course, my roommate Theo, who almost certainly endured me snoring a queen bed with him, didn’t say anything about it, and still took a picture of me holding a hot dog in a kind of funny way. This festival is truly fantastic and unparalleled in its structure and it shocks me that the Spaniards for whom this in their backyard don’t sell it out every year. Oh well: more for everyone else.
That’s it! Someday I’ll get around to typing up my notes about Paris, and I do have most of my stuff about Pitchfork written up so I’ll get around to that eventually. It’s just so hard when you’re a jet setter living the lifestyle your worst enemies are seething with jealousy about (not sure who those people are but I’ll find out eventually).
