In this edition of the Spring Sound of 2025 it has been impossible to use the Auditori and many of its concerts have been located in the paral·lel 62 and Apollo rooms in early hours. On Saturday we opened the day in Pararal·lel 62 with Sporadic music. A project of Suzo Sáiz, the orchestra of the clouds and several musicians who in 1985 launched an Ambient album. Leo on the spring website which is the first time that this album moves to the live. At 1pm there is much more public in the amphitheater seats than in plate. On stage there is a marimba, a vibraphone, timbales … musicians break down a very organic, maritime and something Africanist environment, with a voice that lets go mantras without text. Not everything is so placid, there are times when percussion becomes blunt, travels to Asia, but without losing the aquatic element.
But we have to leave sporadic music because in the Apollo at 14h one of the great jewels of this edition awaits us: Salif Keïta. His entrance to the stage leads to deception: it seems something fragile, deterioration. But as soon as he sits, he grabs the guitar and breaks to sing, the true Salif appears, strong and powerful. Strong and powerful is his voice, sweet and clear his guitar. Touch two delicate folk songs alone. Then the rest of the musicians are gradually incorporated: another guitar that acquires at times. They sit and play morbidly, Salif renews their stories. The concert is acoustic, of spring atmosphere, to see life to pass … until the revolutions begin to rise to dance. Salif asks us for a palms like that, the guitarist sounds clear and they start strong, with a blues. The one of the percussions is made the master, among the smiles of the musicians. They are very jovial, although Salif does not abandon their gesture of concentration. There are more palms, they begin a cheerful and jogging melody that is going up, western is made, they raise the rhythm, the spirits and the hearts. The n’goni kneel before the teacher to play, the percussion is removed. It is a party and they have invited us. Pure pleasure and privilege see Mali’s legend in action.
At 4pm we return to the paral·lel 62, because another of the main dishes of the day awaits us: Destroyer. Dan Bejar has a new album, ‘Dan’s Boogie’. Much of the setlist is based on it. Dan carries a good band to be able to touch his particular vision of the Blue-Eyed Soul, a trumpet included, although, oh, no feminine voice to make the counterpoint, and he will miss a little. Dan is faithful to his image of ruffled hairs, elegant and disastrous at the same time. And acts as a self -absorbed, as usual in it. The new songs sound superb (the sound in the room is thunderous), but they fall into a certain indifference. Not classics such as ‘Times Square’ or ‘Tseseltown Swimming in Blood’. The lights are lowered in ‘Bologna’ and is the only new one that takes applause of classic, although it does not incorporate the female voice.
But the new ones sound very good, that’s why: a good one is assembled with ‘Sun Meet Snow’: Tropical, almost a waltz, noisy, with Dan Salmodiando … but of course, the culminating moment comes, which is ‘Kaputt’. The female choir is missed again, it gives it a different trepidation … but that end with the trumpet is as captivating as ever. As captivating is the trip to the past ‘European’s Oils’, with all its final fanfare. But Dan leaves the honor to close the concert to two songs by ‘Dan’s Boggie’, among a good noise maelstrom.
Already in the Fòrum, I start the day with the Horsegirl Something started in the Trainline, which looks quite crowded. They are very young, it seems that they come from another era and embroider their pop-lofi to the Marine Girls: live sound very well, especially a dry and primitive battery and a bass as basic as effective. And embroide the jumping and reconcentrated ‘2468’. Right after, The peasants! They are willing to give a cheerful party on the Schwarzkopf stage: there are skippers, happiness, they seem delighted to be there … but my colleagues grab me to take me to the Fontaines DCwe don’t know what we are going to find in Mordor.
Well, what I find is the sea of comfortable where I see and listen to the one that will be one of the best concerts of the festival. And the most politicized. They carry the Palestinian flag, the football club also carries it and denounces the genocide that Israel is perpetrating. The fontaines have a very of the 90s: Carlos O’Connell with pink hairs, Conor Curley seems taken from Suede and Grian Chatten himself looks like Liam Gallagher … If Liam Gallagher dignified to move and interact with his audience, of course. But they sound like rock from here and now and their songs are current classics in their own right, for more references they have.
The Revolution stage sounds great: high (without going through) and of course. As high and clear, hymns happen. The first, ‘Romance’, with Grian returning the “Yeaaahhh”. They overflow energy. And although almost all the repertoire is based on ‘Romance’, some past also falls like an exciting ‘Jackie Down the Line’, ‘Televised Mind’, with Grian to the Tambourine, or ‘Roman Holiday’. A great moment is ‘Sundowner’ sung by Conor, hypnotic, atmospheric. Or the accelerated syncopa they give to ‘Big’, another replay of ‘dogrel’. There is a small valley moment that recovers with an accelerated ‘Boys in the Betterland’, celebrated, with the good of palms and tambourine, and that hook with my favorite that is, of course ‘favourite’, in an almost mimetic version.
But the peak is when they play ‘i love you’, concentrated. And there, on the screens, in green, very clear, Free Palestine is projected. And intensity and alienation rise, without the need for Grian to move from the site. The public applauds rabid. And they end it with a huge poster that says Israel Is Comitting Genocide Use Your Voice. The end, with ‘Starbuster’, shows them bathed in colored lights that replicate the Palestinian flag. An exciting, powerful, brave and necessary concert.
Chappell Roan is offering another of the great concerts of the festival: a fantasy in which each theme sounds like Hit. But, snif, I have to leave it, because another goddess awaits me at the Amazon: anohni and the Johnsons. And it is another of the great concerts of the edition. And of strong consciousness also, ecological in this case. Anohni splashes his interview concert with activist scientists who alert the disappearance of the Great Barrier of Coral, in a project that is titled “Mourning The Great Barrier”. And what they tell is so discouraging that, at a given time, I listen to a voice begging behind my back: “Please, enough.” But for Anohni, it is not enough.
All this without losing supreme elegance. The sound is exquisite and in the first rows a fly is not heard. The band is portentous, includes strings and winds. Anohni looks like a past film star, all in white. The posterior screen projects marine images, of maltrecho corals. ‘Why and am alive now’ falls silky, Jounge and tropical jazz. But what is a scandal is ‘4 Degrees’, you take you as a wave, how those “Degreees” sings, with what intensity, which links with the first testimony of a scientist. The song shrinks your soul, the message shrinks. The whole concert is that, a Congoja that demands attention, and gives us beauty despite the catastrophe. Anohni is increasingly retiring on stage, and seems to judge us.
The concert is created to overwhelm. From the crescendo of ‘Hopelessness’, or the barbarity of ‘Motherless Child’, cinematographic, cabaretera, with blues to the Billie Holliday, dramatic until paroxysm: an absolute display of emotion, voice and execution. It leaves us so exhausted that the classic ‘You are My Sister’ almost pales. ‘It Must Change’, dedicated to her mother, is very well received, especially when she snapped with contained “im not Going to Your Heaven!”. The intensity does not abandon her, although ‘Another World’ sounds mild. And the final ‘drone bomb me’ shows a slight optimistic sound, although Anahni wears a kind of black veil. Perhaps that slight optimism, that ray of final light, I know what helps us endure so much pain and destruction.
