Saturday 30/05/09 Primavera Sound Festival, Day Three @ Parc Del Forum, Barcelona

Read the full review on Gigwise here...

Saturday saw us traipsing around Barcelona searching for a pub to watch the FA Cup Final in before settling on the Black Horse just near Parc Ciutadella – a pub which had earlier in the week shown the Championship play off final; that’s dedication. Good match. Solid football played by both, but Chelsea had the quality to hold off Everton’s opportunism. Rock Music.

As we get in we are treated to the countrified croonings of Minnesota’s The Jayhawks. They play quite standard country rock of about 20 years ago, for what feels like ages. It’s inoffensive stuff, and perhaps the perhaps the perfect lead up to the big guy, Neil Young, on the same stage.

But before Neil can put everything on hold, there’s time for Herman Dune to do his thing over on the Rockdelux. David-Ivar certainly delivered a happy set of French joy. Stand out track I Wish That I could See You Soon had everybody dancing and smiling like only a simple love song can. Also it was hard to ignore how much the drummer looked like Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator.

Then it was time for Mr. Neil Young and everything stopped. Between nine o’clock and ten thirty there was nothing else. Everyone in the whole festival was watching Neil do his thing on the Estrella Damm stage. It was quite a feeling. There he is – the silver haired king of rock music. This is what the people want. Just glance around and where before people could wander relatively freely around the site, now they were a mass of people.

Neil said nothing to the crowd, no attempt at Spanish: no attempt at interaction even. Perhaps he’s decided it just isn’t worth it any more, or perhaps he just doesn’t have anything left to say. His voice is still spot on, with that delicate edge making it so soulful when he sing about the trials of life. When he wrote Heart of Gold he wasn’t old… now he literally is getting old, and he’s not going down quietly. Well done Neil.

Far be it for Liars to be upstaged, Angus thanks Neil Young for opening for them and then smashes into a pulsing set. He is like Todd Trainer – all snake hips and clothes that weren’t meant to be on his body (he finishes the set topless with one trouser leg rolled up. The thunderous ‘tribal’ drums are like a paracetamol advert. The vocals are wailed joy. The crowd erupts when they announce “you’re lucky. We haven’t done this for a long time: we’re gonna play one from our very first record.” They don’t give us mr you’re on fire mr, but Grown Men Don’t Fall In The River Just Like That is amazing nonetheless!

So that’s it for Primavera Sound then… and amazing festival it has to be said. Forty thousand people is just right. Six stages is just right. The mix of music is just right. The Spanish weather is absolutely spot on.

Hang on… Sonic Youth are playing? Jesus this is good. Kim Gordon howls while Thurston shakes. Hey Joni and Crème Brulee hit the spot just right, while the big tunes are a little less readily available. From where we are this might as well be the 80s as they look like a bunch of students introducing the world to proper punk rock music. The crowd is awash with smug grins, happy to have been treated to some enormous bands to cap of this fine festival.

Friday 29/05/09 Primavera Sound Festival, Day Two @ Parc Del Forum, Barcelona

Read the full review on Gigwise here...

Day Two was the top day - non-stop hits from evening ‘til morning. The sun was shining high in the sky and even the industrial wastelands around the site look pretty in Spanish dusk. The day kicked off musically with the Vivian Girls whose washed out, fuck you we don’t care punk played perfectly in the Spanish sun peeping through the weird structure surrounding the Pitchfork stage. Playful chatting about hitch-hikers they’d grabbed in Leeds made us jealous. These girls are great, we want to hang out with them.

Art Brut are a reasonable joke that’s gone horribly wrong. Eddie Argos came onto the Estrella Damm stage with a fresh new album in his pocket and the world of confidence. Art Brut have one album’s worth of good songs – that’s all they ever really threatened to have, but then they got big, and now they’ve got three albums and they’re playing the ‘main’ stage at Primavera. They are the low point of the weekend: their songs don’t matter any more, they’ve lost themselves.

Sunn 0))) are so unfathomably far away from Art Brut in everything they are doing that it is painful. They are two massive men. They are one huge wall of speakers. They are wave after wave… after… wave… of grind. They played The Grimmrobe Demos from start to finish in the weekend’s only Don’t Look Back series show for ATP. They played wearing their trademark capes and shrouded in smoke. They’re notes were difficult to pick out amid gut-wrenching feedback and white noise. What began as a jam-packed auditorium thinned quickly. You get the impression that that is what they wanted: they view that as a win! Their music makes you think, it forces you to think hard – it’s claustrophobic and inquisitive. Watching them is a challenge rather than a pleasure – and it’s the succeeding that brings the happiness.

We gathered our thoughts, and what was left of our souls to run over for Jarvis. He followed Art Brut on the ‘main’ stage and came on like the hero he is. He’s full of hot moves still, and good tunes (maybe not that good, but good nonetheless) and now he’s got Steve Albini’s trademark crunch in there too. He paraded round the stage grandly, his voice sounded spot on and his chat was the best yet – “what does that banner say? Can I wear it?”

The Dan Deacon Ensemble were something else over on the Pitchfork stage with drums pulsing like The Boredoms and synths flying high, while Deacon himself – a sort of hyperactive musical savant – careered around trying to organize awkward fun, and getting frustrated when the Spanish didn’t understand his 100mph stream of English instructions. After the second unsuccessful attempt to organize a dance battle Deacon’s commitment swung from quaint to annoying and Albini called from the ATP stage.

Shellac were immense, crashing through a monster set, full of hits (yet sorely lacking Prayer To God and Watch Song). They almost eschewed their usual question session in favour of more hits allowing one question – “why haven’t you played Watch Song?”… well? Todd Trainer was incredible as always – like a sexual lizard. And Albini and Weston’s vocals filled with the same bile they’ve always had, and will always have.

Thursday 28/05/09 Primavera Sound Festival, Day One @ Parc Del Forum, Barcelona

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Some kids over the road were happily setting off cherry bombs as we dragged ourselves out of bed to prepare for the first day of the festival proper. You see, on Wednesday 27th – the day before Primavera Sound – Barcelona erupted into a war zone. All it took was a cheeky Sam Eto’o toe-poke and a clinical Lionel Messi header to clinch the first treble Spain has ever seen for the club who has perhaps deserved it longer than any other.

But I’m talking football, and we’re here for rock music, right? Primavera Sounds is like a Spanish ATP with the Grange Hill nostalgia of Butlins chalets replaced by the eery stillness of the Parc Del Forum, and the blissful ridiculousness of the old Camber Sands beach replaced by the brazen flesh party of Barcelona’s man-made beach.

The music is pretty much the same – there’s even an ATP stage at Primavera, where Lightning Bolt are playing when we make our first sweep of the site. And yes, they are playing on a stage. The inevitable has happened: they caved. They grew up (a bit) and now they play safe sets on stages. Their sets are still crazed bang-ups but the magic has dissipated some.

Then perhaps fittingly it’s over to Marnie Stern to kick things off tapping and yelping her way through a dynamite set of hits, while her enigmatic bassist smolders before thanking the crowd and saying “I never thought we’d be doing this, you have no idea!”

Over on the Rockdelux stage we catch a glimpse of the reformed Vaselines, just in time to hear Molly’s Lips before returning to the ATP stage for a strangely compelling set of balls out of the bath rock music from legends The Jesus Lizard. They are tight as hell and despite the weakness of David Yow’s voice these days, they still rock hard and fast and he finds the time to throw himself into the crowd head first.

Our first visit to the Pitchfork stage is another welcome surprise as The Bug produce the best dance action of the fest so far. Flow Dan spits some incomprehensible jams while the beats bounce like my non-international bankcard. It was a shame when they were cut short during Poison Dart, but that said, it didn’t have the same punch without Warrior Queen’s vox on it. Then it’s over to the ‘Main’ stage (Primavera doesn’t really do ‘Main’ but this is the one Neil Young is playing on Friday and so I suppose this is it) for an impressive, if stunted slice of another of the festival’s reformers; MBV, before heading back to Pitchfork for the days big winner: Ponytail.

Molly and co. put in a storming set of genuine party tunes reducing us en masse into a writhing mess. 7 Souls, Beg Waves and Late For School all set smiles alight, and when I throw my arm around Molly and tell her “that was an AWESOME set, you guys rock!” later on in the night, I fucking mean it dammit!

Post-Ponytail we freaked out to some smashing visuals from Aphex Twin including murmuring references to Windowlicker before witnessing part of the now fabled Wavves breakdown and then spiralling off into the night chatting Champions League could have beens with Spanish folks on the metro. Good start for sure!