Primavera Sound - The Best and The Worst
The world-renowned festival was back in Barcelona with a stacked line-up of international musicians.
Stretching three fully-fleshed days of genre-expansive music, Primavera Sound’s 2024 stint in Barcelona brought musicians from across the globe in close conversation with the seaside and with each other: in a typical hour, we’d see an esoteric, eclectic clash of genres, like emo band American Football taking their melancholy to the stage not a hour before dance quartet ATARASHII GAKKO! burst out with their fierce punk-inspired J-pop. Whether you’re sun-soaking in Porto for the second round this weekend or you’re curious as to who Still Listening loved and hated, read on for recounts of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Best
Disclosure
Sometimes, Disclosure feel like a band from the past - incessant radio play and mainstreamification has done little for them. I approached this post-midnight set with heavy legs, ready for eyes to mist and a half-hearted two step to be my new best friend. Boy, was I wrong. Disclosure brought the party, and then some. Early tracks like ‘When a Fire Starts to Burn’ set the night ablaze, whilst they began to signal their end with new tune ‘She’s Gone, Dance On’, which has to be one of the best songs they’ve ever released. “We’ve waited 8 years to clear that sample, so this feels pretty fucking good!” they yelled. They finished with a crazy live brass section performance of ‘Tondo’, sliding into ‘Higher Than Ever Before’ and, indeed, that’s where we were left, the clouds tasting like Estrella and pulsing warm like aching ankles.
A G Cook x Charli XCX secret set
Admittedly, English electro-pop princess Charli XCX and her trusty collaborator, pioneer of PC music and Goldsmiths alumni A G Cook were high on my list of people to catch. So when I woke up at midday with a head ballooned with ache to a phone-call about their joint secret set on the beach in less than an hour, I shot out of bed, all woes forgotten. Charli posted confused timings on her story and turned up 30 minutes late (what is it these days with lateness signalling fame?) with an army of some fifteen people in tow.
Dressed all in white, she first remixed ‘Pursuit’ by Gesaffelstein, proving she has done her homework on the genre. First song done, she then sat back. Behind the decks she did technically little - a sentiment she’d recycle later in her 3am headline set, where she stomped around the stage free of back-up dancers. This didn’t seem to matter, and the hour remained a blurry, pinch-me mosaic of flying limbs punctuated by the pungent scent of midday poppers. Fans had climbed up to higher ground for a better vantage point, and not two metres from me A G Cook whooped and chatted with Charli’s fiance and drummer of the 1975 George Daniel. A G soon spun the glorious piano track from then unreleased Charli song ‘Mean Girls’, and the party continued. Though her microphone didn’t work so fans a little further back were baffled by the seemingly mysterious end, the secret set cemented Charli’s stardom amongst the festival-goers and beyond.
Troye Sivan
This set might just be the highlight of the weekend. Troye Sivan’s discography is littered with recognisable tunes you might not naturally attribute to him - you could say, then, that he had something to prove. And that he did. From the outfit changes of cropped-out crotches and baggy jeans and the gaggle of oiled up men sharing the stage with him, it was a riot from start to finish. One minute he climbed on a scaffolding structure to arch his back over the bars, and the next he was on his knees, singing innocently into a phallic microphone. Of course, Troye then had to make out passionately with one of his dancers, as his track strutted on. He brought out Spanish singer-songwriter and guitarist sensation Guitarricadelafuente to the sheer joy of the crowd, then a song later covered Ariana Grande’s ‘supernatural’. This is what we call a complete diva moment. Expert mode headline set - and the sun hadn’t even set yet.
The Worst
Lana del Ray
You may have seen the videos; Lana looks a little dazed, a little empty and confused, mouth only half open whilst her biggest notes belt over her. Full disclosure: I have never been a Lana fan. So when, for the only time in my experience of the festival, the crowd beefed up to an unfriendly, uncomfortable heat, I wasn’t too pleased. Lana came on thirty minutes late - a mistake you’d have thought she’d learnt to rectify after last years’ Glastonbury show - and later whined against the festivals rules: “you come on ten minutes late, they’re really strict with timings, but let me try to finish this for you,” she said to the thousands upon thousands of fans as ‘Young and Beautiful’ kicked off. Up until here, the energy was dire. She looked wistful, sure, like a longing protagonist of a Bronte novel lost at sea. That’s where the allure ended, with most of the songs cut short to save time.
Endearingly, Lana spent five minutes at the end of the set meeting fans at the barrier as ‘It’s just a burning memory’ played, but a large portion of the crowd couldn’t shake the feeling that this was too little, too late.
SZA
Everything was set up perfectly for her to succeed - the set looked killer, the crowd were rallied from watching Mitski conduct a lightning storm behind her (I know, read that again). She was late, sure, but at this point it felt like a given, like all the cool kids were doing it. Though brandishing some impressive props - a sword during ‘Kill Bill’, singing from a wrecking ball a little later on - SZA failed to capture the attention of the crowd, who jittered on in drunken conversations. Even worse, she built up to her big finish with international hit ‘Good Days’, but at this point even the instrumentalists were struggling to show their craftmanship; watching my videos back, it’s clunky, cloddish, almost unrecognisable. She came back for an encore of ‘20 something’ with something to prove. Thankfully, this meant I walked away certain that SZA could sweep through trills and runs sublimely, but in the larger context of a carnival like production, her voice is lost like a shout in the breeze.
Teki Latex
It would be surprising if you recognised this name, so don’t panic if you feel a little lost. Teki Latex is a Paris-based electronica, dance and hip-hop artist who is part of French hip-hop group TTC and also runs the record label Sound Pelligrino. It could be said that Teki had an easy job; the final DJ set of the entire festival, adorned with all the unused confetti cannons and at the mercy of the rising sun. Yes, it was crazy for that exact reason - present already transforming into memory and myth, the last burst of commitment to the dance, lost souls finding one another after a journey of multiple moving parts. Teki, in a neon Disney shirt, seemed to play whatever he liked; a remix of ‘Let it Go’ from Frozen? Sure. Total eclipse of the heart? Careless Whisper? Why not. The bass was turned up way too high, so it caused an avalanche of the chest. When ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ came on close to the end, I’d had enough - thankfully the sunrise had its arms wide open to greet my exit.
