Words, videos, and pictures by Rick Moslen

The 11th Annual Primavera Sound Festival assaulted my ears at the end of May in its regular home alongside the marvelous shores of Barcelona, Spain. For three full nights (and two shorter evenings bookending the event), the eight main outdoor stages and massive auditorium hosted over two hundred of the best artists in the world of indie rock/pop/hip-hop/noise/folk/etc without the burden of dirty camp sites (visitors retreat to their hostels or apartments), or the overcrowded frustration of not sharing the same time zone as the band you’re watching. This was my second year in attendance and it possibly outshined last year’s epic lineup. To quote the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, “we’ve had one of our best festival days ever…just to be in the crowd.” (And he probably added a “motherfucker” in there somewhere.)

Once an intimate festival held at the Poble Espanyol, it now welcomes around 100,000 fans to the Parc del Forum each night from 4PM-6AM. Nestled along the coast of the Mediterranean, the cemented metropolis (a few miles outside the city’s center) was once used as a prison, but is now recognized by a giant solar panel masking the skyline. It seldom felt too crowded. As a friend of mine noted ten minutes before Pulp’s set, “We’d have to get here 2 hours in advance for this spot if this was Glastonbury” (and that was the furthest I stood from a band all week).

Sponsorship exists, sure, but it’s far from a corporate festival, especially since the organizers have a knack for pulling in artists with more of a cult or underground following…you know, bands who aren’t welcome to the festival circuit. With perfect weather, decent food selection, and great sound mixes at every stage, I dare you to find a music festival with better atmosphere and a stronger lineup.

Here are my 2011 festival highlights. Due to time schedule clashes, plenty of sets were missed (sorry Mogwai, Yuck, Low, Tallest Man on Earth,) and others simply ignored (of Montreal, Odd Future). Some amateur video is posted to provide a sense of the vibe, so enjoy, and maybe you’ll join in the fun next year!

Day One – Poble Espanyol

The Poble Espanyol is a private village and museum built in the 1920’s that resembles a castle from the outside. Its giant open square is perfect for a rock concert. I arrived in Barcelona earlier that day (after dodging Icelandic volcano ash on my flight in) and right in time for the evening’s five acts.

Echo and the Bunnymen, 8:45PM
I was worried that a bunch of older burnt-out dudes plowing through a 24 song set of the classic albums Crocodiles and Heaven Up There in their entirety would make me wish it was 1983 again (which would suck, cause I wasn’t even born)—but nothing to fear. They nailed every song and Ian McCulloch’s vocals are stronger than ever. The live version of “Rescue” with the audience screaming along (or maybe it was just me) rivaled any Echo studio track.

Caribou, 11:00PM
Headlining the night with their four-member, locked-groove set—Caribou brought their colored wheel of sounds to the crowded square and didn’t disappoint a single dancing person. They also utilized two drummers—a trend common among many bands playing the festival.

Day 2 – Parc del Forum
This year’s festival organizers instituted a card system for buying drinks. Early during the first full day, after waiting in long queues, festival-goers heaved frustration when the card system crashed and nothing worked. I’m personally too impatient to wait in standstill lines, so I survived without drinking anything the first few hours—but the crowd still felt gypped until they got their money back.

Oh well…I still caught amazing sets by Triángulo de Amor Bizarro, The Fresh & Onlys, Public Image Ltd., Suicide, The Flaming Lips, Lüger, Suuns, and The Glenn Branca Ensemble (an ensemble I’ve had the honor of playing in, so I felt obligated to catch their hypnotic set), along with a few less-than-stellar sets (I’m lookin’ at you, Salem). I retreated to my hostel before Girl Talk’s 5 AM slot, but my roommates said it was quite the party.

Islet, 6:00PM, ATP Stage
From the struck of their first note, the members of Islet didn’t stop yelling, jumping, and pogo’ing across the stage (and occasionally out into the crowd) until the set ended. Each member swapped EVERY instrument (and there were a lot) and pounded sweat into every drum head. They were…how do you say it…FUN! Their songs were equally out-of-control.

Grinderman, 11:00PM, San Miguel Stage
No worries—Nick Cave didn’t crash any Jaguars during Grinderman’s ferocious main stage set. The man knows how to front a rock band though. He leans over the edge and howls to his congregation. He clotheslines his maraca-shaking band mate (good ole’ Warren Ellis) to the ground, and he can’t help but look cool-as-fuck riffing on his Stratocaster while dressed in a tailored suit.

El Guincho, 4:00AM, Llevant Stage
Most of the event’s stages switch to electronic or DJ sets by the 3 AM mark. El Guincho brought a full band and plenty of foxy dancers to join him in bringing his two albums to life. The crowd went wild, but seriously, how else can you respond to girls making out on stage following a massive pillow fight?

Day 3 – Parc del Forum
The weather called for rain, but only violence precipitated in Barcelona. Protests glossed Spain’s cities throughout the week in response to harsh unemployment and other pressing issues. Earlier in the day, at the Paca Catalunya, the police beat and sent over ninety unarmed protestors to the hospital and others to jail, but thousands took solace in music that evening—not as a way to escape reality, but as a way to amplify their voice. Shellac, Half Japanese, Belle & Sebastian, Del Ray, Male Bonding, and M. Ward all delivered blistering sets throughout the evening.

Sufjan Stevens, 5:00PM, Rockdelux Auditori
Harold Camping was right, but little did he know, the rapture took the form of a Sufjan Steven’s show; one of the best I’ve ever seen. The spaceship-like Auditorium was an appropriate venue for Sufjans’ neon Tron-themed ravers/band members. Starting in complete darkness with the emotional “Seven Swans” guiding us to the light, when Sufjan’s angel wings physically rose to the glissando of “he is the LORD,” the sold-out audience developed walnut-sized goosebumps (let’s call’em ‘goosenuts’). From there, he stormed through two hours of music mostly drawing from The Age of Adz. Rarely do theatrics and visuals create such a heavy emotional stirring. We accepted Sufjans’ sincere comments and rigid dance moves as genuine, and recognized the humbleness in his voice, say during the solo acoustic rendition of “Sister” from Seven Swans (which included Sufjan singing lessons, eventually instructing us to “sing with more gusto”). The 25-minute “Impossible Soul” included glow-in-the-dark Vadar-like female singers, spaceships, more angel wings, and the audience eventually storming from their seats as the hall erupted in a cosmic dance—fit for any beach party and/or apocalypse. Things couldn’t have gotten crazier—then he encored with “Chicago.”

Pere Ubu, 9:15PM, Ray-Ban Stage
Pere Ubu singer Dave Thomas wins for best between-song banter. His story of driving across Pennsylvania amongst the bears and UFO’s, or the telling of an old girlfriend who reminded him of used tires were laugh-out-loud hilarious. The band also played all of The Modern Dance, along with a few older singles. Quite the incredible mosh pit erupted too.

Pulp, 1:45AM, San Miguel Stage
Giant messages like, “Is this a Hoax?” or “Shall We Begin?” scrolled across the stage curtain and teased the growing crowd. It wasn’t until the lights dimmed and a 50-foot ‘P’ lit to the opening keyboards of “Do You Remember?” did we know that this was for real—Pulp’s back! Eight years since the last Pulp show and fifteen years since the original lineup graced a stage together, they didn’t miss a beat. Jarvis Cocker’s sexy persona and proper English vocals guided us through Pulp classics like “Babies” and “Sorted for E’s & Wizz.” When he stopped to address the police violence at Barcelona’s Placa Catalunya, he dedicated the next song to the “common people,” then, you guessed it, broke into “Common People.” A giant banner poked through the crowd proclaiming, “Spanish Revolution: Sing Along with the Common People,” and the people of Spain sang with unified patriotism. Like Cocker noted in his opening statement, we were making history.

Battles, 3:45AM, Ray-Ban Stage
My eardrums hated me for not wearing earplugs. Ian Williams, John Stanier, Dave Konopka, and the really high crash cymbal triggered a killer set of new material heavy on the Krautrock side of things (a commonality among many bands this year). Guest vocalists like Gary Numan and Matias Aguayo projected on the screens behind the band as the trio pounded through their late-night set, and the huge crowd danced the night away.

Day 4 – Parc del Forum
Halfway through the evening my love for music was trampled by my love for soccer. The Champions League final was between Barcelona and Manchester…impossible to miss. With one stage devoted to screening the game and other digital televisions along the ocean bay, I cheered with the Catalan crowd on festival grounds as Barcelona celebrated victory 3-1. So I missed a few bands, but caught some brilliant shows by John Cale (performing Paris 1919 with a full orchestra), the newly reunited Papas Fritas, Animal Collective, Pissed Jeans, Damo Suzuki (CAN) with Cuzo, The Suicide of Western Culture, and others. I passed out on a grassy hill during Fleet Foxes’ uptempo set, and The Black Angels rocked my Primavera Sound experience to a close late in the evening—until next year! Oh, and these bands too…

Einstürzende Neubauten, 9:15PM, Ray-Ban Stage
The so-called originators of industrial music from West Berlin blew some minds Saturday night. They also brought the funniest moment of the weekend, when singer Blixa Bargeld waved goodbye to the photographers after set’s third song: “I’m going to get naked now, and the newspapers will never know!” Scraps of metal, giant pipes, jackhammers, power drills, and homemade machines resembling torture devices all made predictable appearances. Such devices, along with both abrasive and miserably gentle songs separated them from every other band in Barcelona.

Dean Wareham plays Galaxie 500, 11:15PM, ATP Stage
All familiar with Galaxie 500’s three incredible albums joined in singing along with Wareham and his band. It was like a group sing-a-long around the bonfire at summer camp, because we all know adolescent campers appreciate Galaxie 500 tunes.

Swans, 12:15AM, Ray-Ban Stage
Early Swans shows were so loud that audience members vomited. Nobody here blew chunks, but it was still ear piercing. The Swans terrifying set was both noise-driven and occasionally dancey. At one point Michael Gira thanked the crowd and declared, “I’d seriously fuck every one of you backstage.” Charming, but he sounded like a character from some David Lynch film.

DJ Shadow, 2:45AM, Llevant Stage
Enclosed in a giant sphere (the “Shadowsphere?” the “Shadow Egg?”) that occasionally spun to reveal the mad scientist at work, DJ Shadow (whose set started 45 minutes early—take that for promptness) brought the festival to a perfect close. His set slowly energized a drained audience with massive beats and cool visuals.

Day 5 – Poble Espanyol
We had one more auxiliary night to bring things to a proper close. After My Teenage Stride and BMX Bandits (delightfully playing classics like “E102” and “Disco Girl”), my Primavera 2011 experience ended in the greatest way possible…

Mercury Rev, 10:00PM
I remember buying Deserters Songs in 8th grade with my allowance money, and it became an instant favorite. With a darkened stage sprinkled in candles, Mercury Rev crept into the fog, took their positions, and waited for singer Jonathan Donahoe to approach the mic and begin “Holes.” They made their way through all of Deserter’s Songs as Donahoe roamed the stage like a demented magician. Every song could’ve worked as the last song in any bands’ set, especially the 10-minute rocked out jamming on “Opus 40.” After a three-song encore, I was beat. I went back my hostel, hung with friends, and went to sleep in anticipation for my morning flight back to the USA. As Sufjan Stevens mentioned, music and sound are more powerful than words. Thanks for proving that yet again, Primavera Sound.

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Filed under: Live Music, Not Blake, Jim, or Brendan