PRIMAVERA REVIEW (Part One)

Hi all, this is my personal account of the Primavera festival in Barcelona, in two parts... Sorry about the delay.

Thursday

We arrive at 20 h, just in time for The Fall. Mark E. Smith starts mumbling ‘your future-ah is our clutter-ah…’ and there’s non-stop from then on, with the band, very solid, playing their typically repetitive but vibrant sound. They’re on the main stage and we can mostly see them on the big screen. Mark E. Smith reminds me of a guy in my local area who sleeps on a bench surrounded by cans of beer… But he’s still alive! And they’re a great act.
After that we caught The XX. I’ve heard of them but don’t know their stuff. They sound gentle and interesting, but after them, Broken Social Scene stole the show. They play quite a few songs from their last album, and, maybe it was the beers, but I can’t recall them playing a classic like ‘Anthems for a 17 year old girl’, but still, on stage they’re funny and inventive.
And after that, at 1 am, Pavement are… Pavement. Good songs and a good band… but the beers I’ve drunk are taking their toll now…

Friday

My friend Veronika and I arrive in time for A Sunny Day in Glasgow. To me, the songs are OK, pretty good, but mostly I love their live act. Too short, though, which is fine because it gives us time to go to the Auditorium to watch Low perform ‘The Great Destroyer’. The place is packed and we struggle to find seats. Well, in fact we don’t find them… We sit on the corridors and are told by security to move on somewhere else. That happened three or four times until we managed to find two seats. And as for the show… oh my god, it’s beautiful. Very moving. Definitely, one of the highlights of the festival.
When we leave the Auditorium I join my mate Pep and we both go to see Wire, whilst Veronika goes to see Here We Go Magic. They’re very noisy and mad, she tells me, but she enjoyed the show. Wire weren’t too noisy nor mad, but they were good, they played some classics (not the Elastica song, though…) and I was happy to see them live for the first time.
We join the others and make our way towards the main stage to catch a bit of Wilco. Maybe because I’ve seen them before, maybe because we were far away and I wasn’t paying attention, concentrated in getting drinks, they sounded to me a bit MOR-ish. I think really we were all geared up for the next act, the stars of this year’s Primavera, Pixies (to be continued…)