Primavera Sound Festival
Barcelona (27th - 29th May)
Over the course of its 10 years, Primavera Sound has become firmly established on the European festival calendar. Since moving from its original location near the city’s Olympic Stadium to the Forum area, the Festival has more than doubled in size and now attracts a total weekend attendance of over 100,000 people, boosted in no small way by the hundreds of UK fans who visit every year.
This was my third Primavera and this year’s diverse line-up made me think of what the sadly missed Connect Festival could have been like, if you replaced Barcelona for Inverary, balmy Mediterranean evenings for pishing Scottish rain and sun cream for midgie spray. Maybe it was just the music that made me think of Connect, with a line up which appealed to the ‘more mature’ audience member, with many acts from the 80s and 90s, dominated undoubtedly by The Pixies, who headlined on Friday night.
Having seen them three times since they reformed (I still don’t count the haze of the snakebite-fuelled 20 minutes I saw at the SECC in 1991) I was both looking forward to seeing them again but also worried the wow factor would have worn off to reveal something less memorable.
On taking the stage the first thing that hits you is the size of Frank Black who looks as if he is slowly morphing into a Jabba the Hut type figure (what is the Spanish for moobs?!?). Kim Deal may have gone from indie goddess, to soccer mom to a scary, bonkers aunt and with what looked like two middle-aged geography teachers instead of Joey Santiago and Dave Lovering on guitar and drums. As a spectacle it should not work, but it does, due to the music.
A set that exploded into life with ‘Cecilia Ann’ quickly followed by ‘Bone Machine’, ‘Monkey Gone To Heaven, ‘Velouria’ and ‘Wave of Mutilation’ had the main San Miguel stage bouncing. A cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain´s ‘Head On’ and ‘Planet of Sound’ followed before the 90 minute set finished with the perfect song for a Spanish audience ‘Vamos’, before the obligatory ‘Where Is My Mind’ encore. A performance from a legendary band who have still got the ability to captivate any audience.
Preceding The Pixies, Wilco’s set was beset by sound problems, but despite that, they demonstrated once again why they are one of the best live acts around, and one of the perfect festival bands with a range of tracks from their back catalogue.
On the Adidas stage one of Spain’s hotly tipped alternative acts, the multinational Boat Beam thrilled their audience with a mix of pop melodies and harmonies that reminded me of an Iberian Camera Obscura. Their recently released EP ‘Paper Birds’ got plenty of mainstream airplay and they are certainly one to watch out for.
Saturday started off with Roddy Frame armed only with his acousic guitar in the indoor auditorium, who was able to captivate his select but adoring audience with a set that spanned over 25 years of music and demonstrated his beautiful songwriting, vastly underrated in the UK.
The main headliner for the night was Florence & The Machine. Having now seen them twice in festival settings they still leave me unmoved, though I was certainly in the minority in that respect. Playing mostly tracks from their first album, ‘Dog Days Are Over’ and ‘Cosmic Love’ being particularly well received, the ill-advised and blasphemous cover of the classic ‘You Got The Love’ should ensure Florence is forced to continue her career as backing singer for a Dizzee Rascal, James Corden and John Barnes select.
The Charlatans playing debut album Some Friendly in its entirety brought a bit of meat and veg rock n roll back to proceedings though the weaker tracks sounded bland and tired. For me, of all their albums, it’s Tellin’ Stories that I would want to hear played live.
The much hyped Grizzly Bear were next on the eclectic Saturday night and despite not knowing much about them and not expecting to enjoy then, I was pleasantly surprised by the hour long set which was a mixture of Latin, Eastern and Americana rhythms. Kicking off with ‘Southern Point’ from the album Veckatimest the band seemed to be really enjoying themselves and fed off the great reaction of the audience. Great stage presence and an atmospheric light show had me thinking of a diet Arcade Fire fronted by Rufus Wainwright which is never a bad thing.
Curiosity took me to the Vice stage for Gary Numan, but after waiting for 30 minutes in the vain hope he’d open his set with ‘Cars’ so I could tick that one of my list, the Tory-voting airplane-flying front man still hadn’t made an appearance so the 80s electro theme baton was passed over to Pet Shop Boys on the main stage who played a similar set from T in the Park in 2009, a mixture of their biggest hits and some newer, less well known tracks and lots and lots of dancers.
Starting at 3am, Orbital kept the night going a bit longer but by that point the effects of the San Miguel were beginning to wear off and ‘Chimes’ was my cue to leave what had been another excellent weekend of music and culture.
Primavera Club which takes place in Barcelona and Madrid is a mini-version of the main festival and takes place this year in November.
www.primaverasound.com
Kevyn Whitelaw
