Day 1
The L4 line out of central Barcelona is a meat grinder of human flesh, rammed with bodies from around the world bound for Primavera Sound. Technically, this is the third day of the festival, with a host of shows already played at club venues around the city, but day three is when the event proper begins at the main festival site, the Parc Del Forum – a concrete playground on the edge of the Balearic Sea.
Primavera began in 2001 with a humble 8,000 punters in attendance but it has swelled over the years to an almighty musical behemoth, welcoming near 200,000 people each year to its dusty embrace. Tickets flew out the door in 2016 when the lineup was announced, a dream roster of new and heritage acts including Radiohead, PJ Harvey, Sigur Ros and Tame Impala, plus The Avalanches, returned from the grave.
Air kick off our Primavera, playing the H&M Stage – one of two main stages that bear down over an epic, desolate carpark expanse. The faded Frenchmen are jamming before sundown, playing hits from Moon Safari in pristine white suits, sounding kitsch and nerdy during Kelly Watch The Stars. It’s a mild nostalgic buzz for an older fan, but not that thrilling a set. “I used to listen to this record while having sexy times with my boyfriend,” a friend comments; voice of a generation.
Over on the Ray Ban Stage, Floating Points presents his newly assembled live show, complete with squirrelling guitars of a David Gilmour/Mark Knopfler persuasion, which gives the set an intense Pink Floyd feel. Barrelling electro, kraut funk and a laser show that leaves geometric stains on a screen at the back of the stage heighten the twisted, tripped out feel of this enormous set – an intense and indescribable experience.
Peaches is playing a secret set somewhere, following Lee Ranaldo, while Har Mar Superstar whips up a party. There are dozens of great acts, all over the festival, but it’s hard to tear away from the headliners.
An empanada break later and we are back at H&M stage to see Tame Impala killing it before an adoring sea of fans. Voices go up for The Less I Know The Better and climb even higher for Eventually, the music dropping away as the crowd sings along with the chorus, and then suddenly the band disappears from view. It’s over? The set is 30 minutes short of the advertised schedule, but the roadies seem to be packing down and the crowd begins to disperse. Ten minutes later, with little fanfare, Tame Impala walk casually back on stage, pick up their instruments and cut right back in to the chorus of Eventually, the audience literally running back to the stage to sing along as a confetti canon explodes overhead. The band claims to have had technical issues but the long pause feels like an expert piece of audience trolling, and while much extraordinary music is still to come, this fills our hearts with stupid joy.
When night sets in at Primavera, the site turns into a cattle yard filled with bodies bumping and bellowing in the dark, and endless clouds of cigarette smoke. We weave through the broiling masses to find a spot for LCD Soundsystem, who are pumping a religious disco beat into the air.
James Murphy, more silver fox than man now, is framed in frequent strobe bursts, kissing the microphone and spewing his freshly relevant mid-life crisis onto a frenzied audience. As with Air, the beats are kitsch, but they are still brilliant – a mid-noughties 8-bit explosion with a debt to Talking Heads. The crowd dances, dances, pumps their fists, goes wild for this epic performance.
Day 2
White Fence get a brief look in on the Primavera Stage, but when their subtle psych melodies get lost in the afternoon glare, we cut out for the Heineken Stage to grab a spot for Radiohead. It’s another four hours until they take to the stage, but the carpark arena is already filling up and the atmosphere is tense. The weight of expectation around their set is immense.
Dungen are playing down the other end of the field to a slight but enthusiastic crowd and when they’re done, Savages mount the Heineken Stage in front of us and totally fucking slay. Jehnny Beth rages against the sunset, climbing down from her pulpit to scramble and surf over the crowd, kneeling on a platform of upraised hands to scream into the microphone, lipstick smeared across her sweating face. By this stage, the four hundred metres in front of the stage is full of Radiohead fans, but Beth is a firebrand, setting everything alight. The air is blazing when they are done.
Beirut plays on the H&M stage behind us as the sun goes down, but thousands are now streaming towards the Heineken, jostling and pressing tight for the main event. Radiohead have not played a festival for almost half a decade; their recent run of small European gigs left many fans out in the cold. The whole festival has turned out, churning and heaving in the dark, close as chromosomes and throbbing with excitement.
Just after 10, the stage burns red, and the slinking beats of Burn the Witch begin. There is no string section, the song is a little limp in its live iteration, but the crowd doesn’t seem to care. Thom Yorke sidles up to the microphone and the audience goes ballistic.
Full disclosure – this is the ninth time we have seen Radiohead in the last two weeks, and we got expertly high before the set, so the specifics of their performance are a bit of a blur. As expected, the festival crowd was lukewarm on the new material, though Desert Island Disk is stunning and Ful Stop explodes in a maniac refrain: “The truth will mess you up, the truth will mess you up,” where Yorke is near hysterical; incendiary.
The crowd is waiting, wired, for the hits, and when the opening notes of No Surprises start there is a bellowing roar. 70 000 voices lift up in unison, continue through Karma Police, through the mournful peak of Paranoid Android. Beyond the first 40 rows, there is nothing to see – the megatron screens filled with abstract lights and images, the band tiny specks in the distance – but when they come back for a second encore and Thom says, “If you’re very, very good…” the whole field seems to draw a breath. Off script, off set list, Radiohead finish with a rabble rousing version of Creep and the Spaniards go properly mental. It’s kind of a ridiculous closer, but the bonhomie is sweet.
The Last Shadow Puppets were always going to be a downer after this, despite Alex Turner’s best efforts to tease the crowd. He fawns and prances around Miles Kane,singing with an acid tongue, but the sound is thin on the other side of the field and it’s time to go find the beats.
Icelandic duo Kiasmos pull a massive crowd to the H&M stage with their deep and radiant house, then it’s off to the Ray Ban Stage for The Avalanches, a planet of hype in tow. Just two members take to the stage, standing lonely behind the decks, and they open with a painfully long and drawn out tease, playing vague hints of melodies from Since I Left You amid wafting, aimless noise.
It’s difficult to understand what the fuck is happening here. 15 years in, The Avalanches seem to have rebooted as a club act, spinning soul and disco tunes in uneven bursts. It’s almost painful, but mostly just boring as the faithful crowd tries to follow their fitful rhythms, wondering what happened to the electric hip hop collective that was. They seemed totally unsure of themselves, attempting to remodel their band in a post-EDM world, and while they pull a huge crowd, they just don’t deliver.
We cut out to see the last half of Evian Christ – as psychotic, pummelling and electrifying as dance music should be. He moves from Ode to Joy to Tatu to Rihanna at breakneck speed. It’s a punishing, electrifying palette cleansing finale.
Day 3
As expected, Brian Wilson’s voice is weak, but the real problem with the Pet Sounds set is the volume. Wouldn’t It Be Nice is barely audible from half a field away, and as much as we want to play along, the Beach Boys’ classics are too far out of reach. Over on the Ray Ban stage, on the other hand, Richard Hawley is a powerhouse, sounding rich, thick and romantic on Tonight The Streets Are Ours and Standing At The Sky’s Edge. He has all the gravitas Alex Turner is missing, and twice as lovely songs.
We give the Beach Boy another go and lo, there is volume, enough to make the scattered audience at the back of the field twist and mash-potato with gay abandon. Deerhunter follow on the H&M Stage with a solid set; Bradford Cox looking svelte in a wide-brimmed hat and pleated pants, though his energy is low key.
There is a titanic double-header on the two main stages tonight and it begins with PJ Harvey playing the sax, surrounded by her sombre-looking men and slowly marching onstage. She is diaphanous in heeled ankle boots and swirling layers, a black crow laurel wreath framing her face. And when she starts singing, it is hypnotic, a dark magic kind of thing.
The set begins with material from The Hope Six Demolition Project, and segues into Let England Shake and The Words That Maketh Murder. The stillness of the crowd for Dollar, Dollar is breathtaking, as is the wild energy unleashed for Down By The Water. She’s dark and prowling under the lights, deep in the pocket, beautiful, alien, confident, delivering the show of a lifetime.
Hot on her heels on the H&M stage comes the magical Icelandic pixies of Sigur Ros, breaking the world apart with their rolling waves of gold. Their whole catalogue gets a run on this balmy night, including the blissful strains of Starálfur and the icy climbs of Glósóli, folding up and out over the audience, which is bathed in the megatron light. Primavera will keep going, into dawn and beyond, but this is where it peaks. All around us in the dark, eyes are closed and faces are turned up towards the sky.
Loved: Best festival lineup in human history.
Hated: Festivals are complex torture devices that turn human beings into drunk Orwellian pig people.
Drank: All the things.
BY SIMONE UBALDI
