The saying goes that rectifying is wise and it is obvious that the organization of Primavera Sound took note of its mistakes last year so as not to repeat them. If the first day of the 2022 edition is remembered as chaotic, this Thursday has been completely different. Those responsible for the event were cured in health and, for example, reducing the capacity from 80,000 to 65,000 people. In addition, the surface it occupies in the Forum is also smaller and the stage of Sant Andreu no longer exists, to the joy of the legs of the festival-goers, because getting there was a real pilgrimage.

However, from what has been seen so far, without these logistical reductions there would have been no mobility problems either. There are still weekend passes and single tickets for any of the three days of the festival, which is an anomaly.

Interestingly, it has been the VIP options – more expensive – that have ended. The general comment is: "this year there are very few people". The reasons can be varied: in 2022 there was a lot of desire for live music after the pandemic, maybe the poster was more attractive or that the prices were not so high. To know the official attendance figures you have to wait until Saturday, but much would have to go back to the matter to reach the 500,000 attendees of the previous edition.

Of course and as usual for many calls, by the accents that are heard it is easy to deduce that most of the public is foreign. Most of the British – the most faithful lovers of Primavera – gathered to see in the middle of the afternoon to see Yard Act, the brand new post-punk band from Leeds, which with its debut album The Overload (2022) has already achieved a remarkable legion of followers. Its singer, James Smith, looks like the epitome of the young Englishman on holiday in the Mediterranean, with rosy cheeks, blond hair and sunglasses, but with non-alcoholic beer in hand to break ethyl stereotypes.

They reeled off the most powerful songs from their album, such as Land of the Blind, and presented their new single: Trench Coat Museum. But the audience definitely came up with The Overload and 100% Endurance. They closed with The Trapper's Pelts and, although the overall sound of the concert was not optimal, most of the attendees left happy with the music elsewhere.

Four firecrackers and a Gothic cathedral decoration served to announce Ghost, the masked band of metal and guitars like saws that has fans of satanic aesthetics, double bass drum and costumes of Game of Thrones on tenterhooks. The hour played against him: an apocalyptic spectacle loses a lot as the sea breeze blows away the smoke and a pleasant sunset falls. Pros: his fundamentalist fervor for the European hard rock of the 70s and 80s, which today sounds so light, so sympathetic, so comfortingly innocent. With those pop choruses, with those epic riffs. The performance of the Swedes could not move the public to the batcave, no matter how much pagan confessional booth was available to the public, but the effort was worth it.

The sun was already beginning to go down when hardcore punk band Turnstile took the stage. The four of Baltimore with Brendan Yates at the microphone took half a minute to ignite the audience in the front rows. The pogo that was formed and maintained until the end validated a gym session at least. There was no shortage of songs like T.L.C. (Turnstile Love Connection) or Daniel Fang's drum solo that left everyone ecstatic. Blackout, his most listened song on Spotify, closed a fast-paced concert.

Black Country flutist and saxophonist New Road wears a tie; the bassist sometimes uses the bow to play while chirping nostalgic and slightly hallucinogenic tunes à la Joanna Newsom (makeup: Nile goose); the pianist and accordionist stands in a corner; The fiery drummer in the linen shirt sometimes plays the banjo (at 24 years old!), and the violinist is heard more than the guitarist... until the guitarist puts the wall of noise. All forming a semicircle, no one in the center of the stage, many hours of Conservatory. We are talking about that kind of English folk-rock group: they are not afraid to expose great artistic ambitions in high-intensity progressions and arabesque form. Good for them, or for us: their songs are cabins to teleport to outer space.

It was great the performance of the young singer PinkPantheress, crowned in the United Kingdom as the greatest promise of last year in the macro survey of the BBC Sound Of. The bet is confirmed with a bubbly and cool electronic pop that takes up mythical rhythms of British clubbing such as 2-step garage and drum and bass. He promised a party and it looked like Ibiza.

US rap is one of the endeavors of Primavera Sound, which has experienced some of the best concerts in its history to the rhythm of hip hop. Pusha T was the example of this on the first day with a contagious concert full of flow but in which, unfortunately, the adventures of their modern sound were smoothed out. With three decades of career and several stages of glory, first with Clipse and then with the decisive support of Kanye West, the veteran New York rapper showed craft and an unbreakable repertoire like marble. It caused the second best pogo of the day after Turnstile (same fate, the collective delirium, by two very different paths).

The difficult thing about jumping from the bedroom to the main stage of a macrofestival is to fill it without distorting the essence of those half-cooked fortuitous songs. Alex G, lo-fi champion who invokes the most intimate and emotional spirit of US indie rock in his saturated guitar songs, has made that transition well. Now that the guys don't want to be electric guitar singer-songwriters, their proposal sounded fresher than it would have two decades ago, when this secondary road sound was a bottled highway.

With the moon already in the sky, people moved to the very varied food stalls to gather strength for the performances of the highlights of the day: Le Tigre, Goldfrapp and, of course, Blur. Not only can you live on beer – although it seems so by the contents of the glasses – and at certain times of the day, the smell of fritanga works like the flute of Hamelin. At the close of this dition, there was still a lot of night and a lot of music ahead.

  • music
  • Concerts
  • Articles Pablo Gil

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Learn more