Barcelona – Primavera isn’t exactly shy of media organisations suggesting it is one of – if not the – greatest festivals in the world. And sure, nobody could deny that seeing Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, Sigor Ros, PJ Harvey, Air and ‘Brian Wilson performing Pet Sounds’ all together on a lineup poster is a fairly impressive piece of festival curation. The award for best set of day one at Primavera actually goes to Explosions in the Sky however, whilst the big LCD Soundsystem set was decent, but seemed to lack a sense of occasion somehow.
We’ll return to the question of whether or not Primavera is the world’s best festival later on in the week, but first, here are three highlights from the start of the festival.
Tame Impala – You wouldn’t automatically think an act like Tame Impala would be capable of inducing Moments of Mass Pogoing, but with their sprawling, confounding album opener Let It Happen they can now do just that. All of a sudden they are as wonderfully capable of having their audience recall The Chemical Brothers as they are their earlier roots in more straight forward psychedelic rock, Tame Impala have become – maybe a little improbably – a huge act.
After nearly a year touring in support of their Currents album, they’re turning in tight, studio-perfect versions of their songs.
Despite their slot supporting LCD Soundsystem tonight, Primavera have granted them a full 90 minute slot. Which faintly begs the question: is a festival crowd really ready for 90 minutes of Tame Impala, and is there anything here that wouldn’t have benefited from being wrapped up in a nice tight 70 minute set? Certainly, it’s telling that even when the band’s sound cuts out for a full five minutes during the excellent ‘Eventually’, the close of their set still feels a little more of a jog to the finish line rather than a sprint. However, there is easily enough assured brilliance on show elsewhere in their set to make them a deserved highlight of the weekend. (Photo of Tame Impala by Eric Pamies for Primavera).
Goat – Okay, so Goat actually played the (free) Wednesday night of the festival, where they shared a bill with Suede and not much else. (the superb Suede being forced to change their name in the US market to ‘The London Suede’, to keep confusion with the American singer Sue their debut album ‘World Music’ in 2012. As the sun sets, the level to which this audience is behind Goat would be really quite remarkable if they weren’t quite so obviously deserving of it. Primavera prides itself on attracting – shall we say – your more discerning music fan, and Goat are the perfect act to warm them all up for the rest of their weekend. (Photo of Goat by Dani Canto for Primavera.)
Beak> – Seminal British trip-hop pioneers Portishead aren’t a band exactly known for having kept up a prolific public profile over the last couple of decades. They’re more the type of band to pop up every now and then to headline a festival for the paycheck, then disappear and continue to decide whether they want to release an album this decade or not.
It’s hardly surprising then, that over the last few years founding member Geoff Barrow has decided to put together an outlet for the music he’s creating when Portishead are outside of their ‘active’ periods. This outfit is called Beak>, and they’re playing early evening on the Primavera stage.
There could well be some top quality South-West of England stage banter on show here, but the audience for the most part seem happy to talk over it. No matter; the music is strong enough. Beak> specialise in lovely, strung out rhythmic jams. Appropriately enough given their position playing on the same evening as LCD Soundsystem, the band tend to sound alternately like James Murphy’s resurrected disco-rock outfit and – perhaps somewhat inevitably – Barrow’s own initial band. So feel free to imagine how good a cross between those two acts would be. (Photo of Beak> by kostaskontonikolas on Instagram.)
Mark Muldoon can be found on Twitter and Instagram.
Primavera is streaming live all weekend – including Radiohead! – at http://www.primaverasound.es/index
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Mark Muldoon
He also judges the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Award and Glastonbury's Emerging Talent Competition, is never ever without his camera, once backpacked Syria, and also likes Burning Man, the Nottinghill Carnival, BBC 6 Music, India, Taylor Swift, Japan and blueberry muffins.
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