- A friend and first-time attendee asked what keeps me coming back to Primavera Sound year after year. There isn't an obvious answer—it doesn't land any knockout blow or hold a shining USP. Yet it wins out on a compound of positive elements. The sun invariably shines come May in Barcelona, and the city's waterfront expanse is a beautiful backdrop. A near round-the-clock programme throws up enjoyable curveballs and things get loose, but never uncomfortably so. The artists clearly enjoy taking part, thanking the festival itself in a way that doesn't feel trite. This is something you rarely witness at such big events.
Size is the thing to bear in mind. The venue, Parc del Fòrum, is huge, which means a lot of walking on concrete, though the site is rarely congested. In terms of bookings, Primavera began to expand its reach a few years ago, and has since scaled up well. Within a two-hour stretch on Thursday afternoon, I had gone from Champion rinsing bassline on a beach, over to Lee Fields & The Expressions' strutting funk, and back to the beachside electronic zone, Bits, where Karen Gwyer and DJ Seinfeld were competing for ears.
2018 was not without its problems, though. Primavera has traditionally balanced its headliners between nerdy heritage acts (Aphex Twin, My Bloody Valentine, Grace Jones) and contemporary stars, like 2017's Solange and The xx, who are undoubtedly popular, but retain an air of integrity. But radio-dominating giants such as Migos and Arctic Monkeys, who both played this year, brought a different crowd. Post-match analysis online noted gaggles of blokes on stag do's talking loudly over The National. (It should be said, though, that they were the exception rather than the rule. Overall, the various audience types gelled well.) There are still few other festivals where a small nation's worth of people sprint to get between Deerhunter and Beach House at 2 AM. The bedrock remains as solid as ever.
Here are five key performances from across the weekend.
Kelela
Opening with "LMK" and flanked by shoulder-rolling dancers in matching white outfits, Kelela was a model of poise. Given an early slot on the characterless Ray-Ban stage, the performance could have felt like a warm-up. But the US artist lent soul to a stage in short supply of it. She quipped about the risk of bringing ballads to festivals, encouraged the crowd to "bounce" to the Cut 4 Me highlight "Go All Night (Let Me Roll)" and frequently cut loose herself, sending her voice soaring over a sea of orange and pink hair.
Björk
Björk delivered the most creative headline performance I've seen in my six years at Primavera. A Star Wars-style text scroll onscreen set out the immersive concept: the Paris Climate Accord has failed, yet humanity has survived and is reborn. This future bliss-scape came complete with a rotating vaginal throne, extensive varieties of flora, a flute choir and, at one point, a she-emperor riding a man made of bananas into the looming mouth of a dragon.
The set drew predominantly from 2017's Utopia, so you had to be comfortable with a lot of fresh material. As a result, old favourites like "Isobel" and "Pleasure Is All Mine" worked well, a welcome relief for those not up to scratch on her more recent output. You had to be comfortable, too, with the irony of all this environmentalism performed under the logo of an emissions-spewing car company. Yet my friends and I were transfixed—it felt indeed like the world had shifted. All that remained was the occasional ripple of a harp and one force-of-nature voice, sending up paeans into the stillness of the night.
Honey Dijon
Primavera has always booked the bigger electronic acts, but it's traditionally been a thoroughly different proposition from Sónar, which takes place in town a few weeks after. That was until 2016, when they set up a new area called Bits, Primavera's self-described "festival within a festival." Honey Dijon's set on the Desperados Club stage underscored the change. Underneath a spidery stage of red and blue lights, she bolted through a set of bumpy, fruity house, setting off cascades of rolling echo or interlacing vocals from classics by the likes of Stevie Wonder and Chaka Khan every time she wanted to hit a crescendo. Dozens of statuesque, topless, nipple-studded dancers frothed around the fringes of the dance floor, waving silk fans—a hitherto invisible tribe.
Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein
The path that Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein took to arrive at Primavera, where they sent majestic rumbles over the heads of 2000 concertgoers for a matinee performance in a pitch-black auditorium, would draw pause from even the most adventurous scriptwriters. But Stranger Things prised open a door for their Angelo Badalamenti-style eerie crawlers, so an immersive experience duly followed. The pair performed within a latticework cage, which flickered periodically to illuminate their enormous racks of analogue synthesisers.
An affecting rendition of "The Return," from the Netflix show's second season, signalled a second-half switch. What had appeared to be a contained setup broadened, with purple and red lights snaking up the tiered seating like wreaths of ivy. Imposing movements matched with intense strobes. Whether or not this proves to be a career apex for the Emmy Awards-winning composers, it certainly felt like one.
Lindstrøm
With multiple big club acts to choose from—Donato Dozzy, Vril, a full spate of Warp artists in a Bowers & Wilkins-equipped concrete bunker—I plumped for the easygoing pleasure of Lindstrøm to round off the weekend. Excitement rippled through the crowd with each familiar piano vamp or arpeggiated key change, as the Norwegian glided through recent singles and highlights off the Smallhans and It's A Feedelity Affair LPs. "I Feel Space" in particular had my friend, who had travelled more than 4000 miles for the festival, beaming with delight.
2016's "Closing Shot" lived up to its name—and a rather abrupt one. The set was a wrap before sunrise. The crowd, and Lindstrøm himself, had more to give. Once again, this crystallised the wastefulness of giving DJ Coco (a resident of Barcelona's Nitsa club) the very last slot, which proved to be a perfunctory mash of cheesy disco-pop and, at one point, an EDM edit of Outkast's "Hey Ya." Given their willingness to adapt year on year, this feels like one tradition Primavera should consign to the past.
Photo credits /
Paco Amate - Kelela
Santiago Felipe - Björk
Gabriel Szatan - Honey Dijon
Dani Canto - Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein
Callum McConnachie - Lindstrøm
Björk Björk delivered the most creative headline performance I've seen in my six years at Primavera. A Star Wars-style text scroll onscreen set out the immersive concept: the Paris Climate Accord has failed, yet humanity has survived and is reborn. This future bliss-scape came complete with a rotating vaginal throne, extensive varieties of flora, a flute choir and, at one point, a she-emperor riding a man made of bananas into the looming mouth of a dragon. The set drew predominantly from 2017's Utopia, so you had to be comfortable with a lot of fresh material. As a result, old favourites like "Isobel" and "Pleasure Is All Mine" worked well, a welcome relief for those not up to scratch on her more recent output. You had to be comfortable, too, with the irony of all this environmentalism performed under the logo of an emissions-spewing car company. Yet my friends and I were transfixed—it felt indeed like the world had shifted. All that remained was the occasional ripple of a harp and one force-of-nature voice, sending up paeans into the stillness of the night.
Honey Dijon Primavera has always booked the bigger electronic acts, but it's traditionally been a thoroughly different proposition from Sónar, which takes place in town a few weeks after. That was until 2016, when they set up a new area called Bits, Primavera's self-described "festival within a festival." Honey Dijon's set on the Desperados Club stage underscored the change. Underneath a spidery stage of red and blue lights, she bolted through a set of bumpy, fruity house, setting off cascades of rolling echo or interlacing vocals from classics by the likes of Stevie Wonder and Chaka Khan every time she wanted to hit a crescendo. Dozens of statuesque, topless, nipple-studded dancers frothed around the fringes of the dance floor, waving silk fans—a hitherto invisible tribe.
Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein The path that Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein took to arrive at Primavera, where they sent majestic rumbles over the heads of 2000 concertgoers for a matinee performance in a pitch-black auditorium, would draw pause from even the most adventurous scriptwriters. But Stranger Things prised open a door for their Angelo Badalamenti-style eerie crawlers, so an immersive experience duly followed. The pair performed within a latticework cage, which flickered periodically to illuminate their enormous racks of analogue synthesisers. An affecting rendition of "The Return," from the Netflix show's second season, signalled a second-half switch. What had appeared to be a contained setup broadened, with purple and red lights snaking up the tiered seating like wreaths of ivy. Imposing movements matched with intense strobes. Whether or not this proves to be a career apex for the Emmy Awards-winning composers, it certainly felt like one.
Lindstrøm With multiple big club acts to choose from—Donato Dozzy, Vril, a full spate of Warp artists in a Bowers & Wilkins-equipped concrete bunker—I plumped for the easygoing pleasure of Lindstrøm to round off the weekend. Excitement rippled through the crowd with each familiar piano vamp or arpeggiated key change, as the Norwegian glided through recent singles and highlights off the Smallhans and It's A Feedelity Affair LPs. "I Feel Space" in particular had my friend, who had travelled more than 4000 miles for the festival, beaming with delight. 2016's "Closing Shot" lived up to its name—and a rather abrupt one. The set was a wrap before sunrise. The crowd, and Lindstrøm himself, had more to give. Once again, this crystallised the wastefulness of giving DJ Coco (a resident of Barcelona's Nitsa club) the very last slot, which proved to be a perfunctory mash of cheesy disco-pop and, at one point, an EDM edit of Outkast's "Hey Ya." Given their willingness to adapt year on year, this feels like one tradition Primavera should consign to the past. Photo credits / Paco Amate - Kelela Santiago Felipe - Björk Gabriel Szatan - Honey Dijon Dani Canto - Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein Callum McConnachie - Lindstrøm