The “Steve Albini’s home” poster is one of the first visual elements that Primavera Sound attendees see when they arrive at the Fòrum, this Wednesday’s opening day. It is a warm and welcoming welcome: Spring feels like home. But the festival also underlines its political component by hanging a “NO WAR” sign facing the sea, with letters recycled from previous “Primavera Sound” signs.
The festival, with a truly equal lineup, remains committed to the social causes that identify it and this year, for example, also has the participation of the manteros of Barcelona, represented by the Popular Cooperative of Venedors Ambulants of Barcelona, for the creation of the “Youth Against Fascism” t-shirt, a motto taken from a Sonic Youth song from 1992, indicating that the t-shirts have been “made by an immigrant.”
The opening day has become a very significant event in itself, especially since the great performance of Stella Maris in 2024. The main attraction this year is Wet Leg, like that year was Phoenix or last year’s La Casa Azul, but the previous concerts begin to attract audiences as early as a quarter to six in the afternoon.
It is at that time when it acts Ouinetaone of the current sensations of Catalan pop. The artist, who we met through the “bubbly” hyperpop of ‘DM’s’ and who, in her role as a dancer, accompanied Rigoberta Bandini in the ‘Ay mama’ at the Benidorm Fest, has done a rebranding focused on the two-thousand pop of divas like Beyoncé, who is evoked by her choreographies with colorful canes and long hair, but without giving up a certain stage humor and putting a lot of thought into the matter.
A better pop star than a rapper, she presents her album ‘Ouineta Verizada’, full of mainstream productions like ‘La roda’ or that ‘Tai Chi’ that you’ve probably heard in an advertisement. Songs like the hyper-defined afrobeat of ‘Buganvilla’ show an artist with a good ear for interpreting the present, while the staging opts for the absurd, announcing “dancebreaks” on screen with lyrics in comic sans, using “furby” dancers or sampling Kelis’s ‘Milkshake’. Maria Jaume and Mushka – who, to add some spice, is Ouineta’s partner – are the guests.
One of the best innovative post-punk groups in the United Kingdom, Yard Act They don’t have the massive potential of Fontaines DC, but their music is an explosive mixer of influences that explodes in your face when you least expect it. In 2023 they published an eight-minute masterpiece, ‘The Trenchcoat Museum’, which does not appear on any of their albums – nor will it appear on the one that comes out in July – but serves to close their set at Primavera, creating a dizzying and overwhelming atmosphere.
The intensity of the show is such that the leader James Smith ends up red as a tomato on stage, something that may not be predicted by the saxophone introduction, but which of course is led by the really exciting guitars of ‘Thrill of the Chase’ or that still unreleased ‘You’re Gonna Need a Little Music’. Delighted to see our “beautiful faces”, James is the typical frontman who seems possessed by the music, and the rest of the band builds a very well-oiled post-punk set, with a tendency towards an accelerated tempo, at times resembling Franz Ferdinand out of control.
A friend says that between the Yard Act and Guitarricadelafuente shows there is a replacement between the British and Catalan audiences (by the way, you hear a lot of Catalan on the opening day; it is noted that the Fòrum has not yet received the hordes of international attendees until today, Thursday; some, by the way, arrive in my humble neighborhood).
The ‘Spanish Leather’ tour continues and, a year after its premiere at Poble Espanyol, it returns to Barcelona with a new song (‘Calypso’) and some of the changes seen recently in Murcia and other festivals. Guitarricadelafuentewho has just reunited with Blood Orange, continues to indulge in voluptuousness, posing with microphone stands or literally throwing himself into the mud, since a section of the stage has been filled with mud so that Álvaro can get his legs and arms dirty. Then he returns with a change of wardrobe, including some sports suspenders that show off his chest.
The camera focuses on the calves and rear in a very strategic way, and the entire show, as we have already mentioned, is built around the sensuality of Guitarricadelafuente. The large stage of Primavera also allows for greater scenic display: a pair of gymnastics rings hang from the ceiling for two dancers to show off; Later, two other dancers star in a strange – I don’t know if it’s very well received – mud fight. Of course, Guitarricadelafuente performs on a rack, and at the end of ‘Tramontana’ he sports a military/stage type jacket that I personally had not seen and that underlines the baroque style of the song.
Transitioning from the neo-folk stomper of ‘Future Lovers’ to the naked emotion of ‘Conticinio’, Guitarricadelafuente has managed to make the audience chant “your ass in Barceloneta is folklore”, and since he is also folklore, he does not hesitate to go down to the floor at one point in the concert, crossing several rows of people. The curious moment of the show features the “call” of “BG”, that is, Bad Gyal, who intervenes by video call to support Guitarricadelafuente and greet the audience, before his performance today.
The great international asset of the “free” Primavera Sound event has been Wet Leg with its furious but hilarious rock, represented by the choruses chanted by hundreds of people of ‘catch these fists’ or the enormous ‘wet dream’, and embodied in the group’s own leader, Rhian Teasdale, who, as if trying to compete with Guitarrica, also shows off her biceps and wears leather panties over her mini shorts, looking like some kind of punk wrestler.
Rhian is, logically, the most visible face of Wet Leg thanks to her natural charisma, magnetic stage presence and a voice between the whisper and the authoritative, but perhaps more notable is the way in which her songs fill the large stage space, sounding equally vast as they are danceable and sharp; alternating from the epic of ‘chaise longue’ to the tenderness of ‘u and met at home’, after all a love song. Next to me, a group of friends shouting all the choruses symbolize the reach of this group.
Towards the halfway point of the show, Wet Leg asks the audience for help to scream: it is at the end of ‘ur mum’ when Rhian asks us to scream with all our might, and suddenly the music stops playing to make room for the deafening screams of the audience. Speaking of choruses chanted by the audience, the “get lost forever” of ‘mangetout’ serves as the culmination of a night that invites us to kindly leave the venue, playing George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ at full blast.
