Primavera Sound 2010
When I first approached Primavera Sound about a press pass for their three day festival in Barcelona, the original intention was to a do a proper write up and review, 1500 words ish, with detailed features on every artist I could see and try and give as accurate a representation of the event as possible.
But then you kinda realise how completely redundant that kind of article would be, especially after the whole experience, as a) the festival’s been around for years now and has a pretty high percentage of UK attendees so no prizes for any first scoop there b) if you had seen the lineup to Primavera this year you probably would have gone anyway and c) given the almost hourly time clashes and standard festival factors, inevitably everyone you knew had a completely different experience to one another, so apologies if I don’t get across the exact three days that you had.
I decided to take the more sensible and less labour intensive approach would be to show off some photography of the site and give a little insight where needed, as as there’s only so far you can articulate, yeah I watched a band it was good.
Giulia Sermoneta
Set in the Barcelona’s former Olympic ‘Parc Del Forum’ above are two shots of before and after the entrance gates, that massive black building to the left in the first photo is the auditorium for seated events and quieter numbers. I think Low played there or something, haven’t listened to them in while, probably should have gone.
Officially dubbed the San Miguel Primavera Sound Festival, sponsorship was pretty common place, Ray Bans, Vice, Pitchfork had stages and Jagermeister had their own tent. Not sure why I’m mentioning this, is advertising even a big deal at festivals these days?
Giulia Sermoneta
In my attempts to live up to to true Brits on holiday reputation I spent a lot of the festival binge-drinking and working on a bacon pink complexion. Which inevitably led to some awful photography on my part, for example, compare my photo of the xx with lovely Giulia Sermoneta’s;
The xx were incredible though, a powerful (and popular) set from the former Sweet and Sound interviewees. Romy Croft even snuck in a few appropriately Balearic bars bars of ATB’s 9pm ‘Til I Come midset.
In recent years Primavera has hosted some incredible DJing talent (Robert Hood, The Bug) yet this wasn’t the case this year (mind blowing set from The Field allowing). Given that Barcelona hosts dance music marathon Sonar just a month after it’s not to hard understand why guitars reign supreme at least for the start of June. Plus you forget that there’s a lot things that DJ’s can’t do, like be Tim Herrington.
ATP also had a stage at the festival (below), which coupled together with headliners Pixies, Petshop Boys and Pavement, meant that their was a bit of an air of celebrating antiquity at the festival. A system which can always have its ups and downs, you can tell that some bands really relish it and put on an incredible incredible show (Liquid Liquid), whereas some take the piss and don’t play any hits even after 40 minutes (Wire) and others where it’s just hit after hit after hit (Pixies).
What I did think was interesting was watching future classics emerge, as mentioned before seeing the xx play to one of the biggest non-headlining sets was fantastic, as was watching Yeasayer on the Saturday night bring to life their recent summer anthems, similarly with Major Lazer and Real Estate. Cold Cave, and their barren industrial pop songs were a highlight especially. Also even if you’ve witnessed some of the best guitar music of the last 30 years over 3 days, watching bands like Les Savy Fav and Grizzly Bear leave with a pretty healthy sense of optimism for the future.
Giulia Sermoneta
Primavera Sound doesn’t limit itself to just the festival site though, there are gigs in a city centre park and clubnights at the Apollo before and after the main event, though apart from a couple of awful hipstermatics, the only evidence I could find for these was this photo of Black Lips/King Khan by pizza blogger Joe Iley.
I think that pretty much covers what you missed out on.
Words and photos by Bobby Jewell, unless stated as Giulia Sermoneta
More Primavera photos by Giulia can be found on her flickr
With thanks to Joe Iley
P.S Fuck Shellac