News / / 06.06.13

PRIMAVERA SOUND

Parc del Forum, Barcelona | May 22nd – 26th

Fully established as one of the most exciting festivals in Europe, and reportedly selling a third of its tickets to Brits this year, Crack Magazine joined the goths, hippies, punks and ravers in flocking to the 13th outing of Primavera Sound. This year the wildly eclectic festival on the sea had assembled the line-up to end all line-ups.

One of our favourite things about Primavera Sound week is the array of warm-up gigs and afterparties, dotted around a series of interesting and unusual venues around the city. Catching Guards, Cheetahs and hometown boy John Talabot the night before the festival proper was underway got our Catalan adventure off to an appropriate start.

We ventured to the brilliant Herzog and de Meuron designed festival site on Thursday to be welcomed by the dulcet tones of ex-New Pornographers songstress Neko Case, whose deep drawl never fails to entice. A quick dash over to the Pitchfork stage assured Crack caught the end of the mighty Savages, who had raised a monstrously huge crowd for so relatively early in the day, powering through She Will and Husbands to close their set.

Savages - Dani Canto

A hike over to the horribly flat Heineken stage was worth the dust and grit as Tame Impala provided a positively dreamy show with the sun setting on Barcelona. A festival highlight then came with Dinosaur Jr playing Freak Scene back to back with their cover of The Cure’s Just Like Heaven. Pints were spilt, tears of joy were shed – and these were swiftly followed by incredulous glances as Fucked Up’s Damian ‘Pink Eye’ Abraham joined the legends onstage to storm through hardcore band Last Rites’ track Chunks.

Dinosaur Jr - Eric Pamies

We couldn’t wait to see him in action again, and promptly witnessed Fucked Up tear the Pitchfork Stage to bits, the sweat-drenched Abraham getting up close and personal with the front rows, as per usual. Less usual was Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox donning a black wig and ankle length tea dress, as his band delivered the best set we’ve ever witnessed from them, feeding hungry fans with huge portions of both classic jams and new tracks from their latest brilliant record Monomania. And as if we couldn’t lose our marbles further, we found ourselves jumping around down the front of Animal Collective’s sublime soiree before pegging it off to see Jackmaster, whose timely drop of Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer ended day one of the festival on a rousing crescendo.

We kicked off Day Two with some soulful melodies from everyone’s favourite hangover remedy, Kurt Vile, as he yelled “You guys are the best” at the crowd as the sun caught his locks. Blissful. Merchandise looked a little out of place on the expansive stage, with tracks like Become What You Are losing their trademark moodiness in the wind and sunlight, so we trucked on to see Django Django who seemingly smashed it, assembling thousands of dancing bodies at the vast Heineken stage.

Now the problem with attending a festival with a line-up of this magnitude is the process of looking long and hard at the inevitable clashes across eight stages, and decide where you’re going to take the hit. This year’s damage was colossal, with The Breeders, Shellac and Solange all starting bang on the hour.

After much careful deliberation, Shellac on the ATP Stage won out, and we were mighty glad it did as we found the three-piece playing a fair whack of new material and in uncharacteristically chatty mood, with Steve Albini declaring that Spain has “the most fuckable population.” Oh Steve, you old flirt. We were thrilled to press on to our next act de jour, The Jesus and Mary Chain, who admittedly lacked that haunting edge of 20 years ago, but who played favourites Far Gone and Out, Teenage Lust, Happy When it Rains and Just Like Honey, so were well worth the punt. Quite elated, we dashed off for a dance to Doldrums, before arriving just in time for Blur’s opener Girls and Boys. We can confirm that Blur are huge in Spain. Damon beamed with pride throughout a set which flew by and left us feeling a swell of pride in our local lads. End of a Century was our undeniable festival highlight. We ended our Friday with the onslaught of the excellent Fuck Buttons, who blew us away as always.

Blur - Eric Pamies

By Saturday, our third and final day on site, we were rather frail and bedazzled as three days of this 6pm – 6am fest require some serious stamina. But stamina is our mantra, and on we went to witness sweet performances from favourites Melody’s Echo Chamber, Mac DeMarco, Apparat (playing his awe-inspiring Krieg Und Frieden in its entirety) and Thee Oh Sees before the masters came to work, the mighty Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. They stepped up and knocked us out with a set of new album tracks and classics like Tupelo, From Her to Eternity, Red Right Hand and a sexually charged Stagger Lee, which saw the front row of the crowd get a face full of Nick’s crotch. Brilliant. From dark to darker, we set off to watch Liars deliver their eerie brew of electronica before diving into the sea of bodies going mad for Crystal Castles. But Alice Glass’s signature yells were somewhat lost among the swathes of people, so we gave up and gladly ended our night at the ATP Stage with some Syrian disco courtesy of Omar Souleyman.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dani Canto

Though this festival felt vastly busier than years previous, it didn’t suffer for it, its punter-friendly lay out, facilities and independent spirit catered for the hundreds of thousands of visitors who came, saw and conga’d. We can only recommend you start looking at flights to Barcelona for May 2014 sharpish, as it’ll be the best decision you make all year.

 

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primaverasound.com

Words: Lucie Grace

Photos: Dani Canto + Eric Pamies

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