Imagine keeping all your vitality and energy intact after more than 40 years of career. Nick Cavewho this week performed at festivals in Germany and Portugal, was so eager to perform at Mad Cool that he jumped on stage a minute or two early. It was scheduled for 10:00 p.m. and at 9:59 p.m. the “GET READY FOR LOVE” projections were already shining in the distance, with their entire enormous band of musicians and backup singers deployed. “We’re not waiting, we’re leaving now,” I imagine him proposing behind the scenes, ready to devour 50,000 people.
As expected, Nick Cave’s concert was the icing on the cake of a festival that has once again added more than 200,000 attendances, more than 50,000 per day, with no incidents in terms of logistics, nor any other complaint than the absence of a pop tent or meeting point, where you can stay with your friends or tell people what you have seen. But the “neighbors”, who live too far away – Mad Cool is held in the middle of an industrial estate – will never allow it.
Oblivious to Villaverde Alto’s hostility, the second song of the set roared and got the audience fully involved. In ‘From Her to Eternity’ Nick Cave gestured; Warren Ellis even more so, the winds shone in a sound equalization that would stand out throughout the set, especially in that marvel called ‘Weeping Song’, which could even be danced to, and in which every percussion detail was a delicacy. The same thing that happened in ‘Red Right Hand’.
There are songs that Nick Cave begins at the piano and ends standing, like a Messiah, like ‘Wild God’, and there are others in which he gives himself to the audience from the beginning. He loves to mingle with people, especially in ‘Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry’, in which he selects a fan, grabs his hands, looks him in the eyes and sings almost the entire end of the song, completely out of breath.
Nick Cave has no problem leaving the leading role in ‘Henry Lee’ to the voice of his backup singer Janet Ramus, so different from that of PJ Harvey, although he saves his greatest asset for last, a piano version of ‘Into My Arms’ that Mad Cool in full croons in a beautiful collective whisper that seems to move a man who has already experienced it all. And us with him.
The other big headliners, pulpThey didn’t have such a lucky night. Not at all like the one we saw at Primavera Sound a couple of years ago. Maybe this show is more austere, maybe in that space they are understood better, maybe some things went wrong, like for example coinciding with the World Cup match in England. The festival-goers from this country preferred to follow the match on their mobile phones, ruining the end of ‘This Is Hardcore’, when England scored the final 2-1 in extra time. Jarvis Cocker had difficulty getting audience reactions beyond the front rows when performing on the Main Stage; in ‘Do You Remember the First Time’ he pulled his microphone too violently, leaving no sound; and finally, we don’t know if ironically or not, he blurted out: “enjoy the rest of the festival”, when they were the last to play. At one point he even threw something towards the sky that was supposed to fall into his mouth but he didn’t make it. It wasn’t Pulp’s best night.
And not because they didn’t get the repertoire right. ‘Disco 2000’ played in second place, new songs like ‘Spike Island’ or ‘Got to Have Love’ fit in well and in the end they were able to make a comeback with the recovery of the infallible ‘Mis-Shapes’, ‘Babies’ and ‘Common People’. Surely his followers fondly remember from this concert the montage of pop screens, the close-ups of Candida Doyle at the keyboard or Jarvis Cocker’s efforts to connect, citing the exact date of the “first time” they played in Madrid: November 18, 1995 at The Revolver Club. But it is not the time when they best managed to reach the last row.
The one who did manage to grab back the mini beer that he threw into the air and continued drinking from it when it fell into his hands again was Matt Berninger. Using only a couple of songs from The National, and not necessarily the most popular ones (‘Slow Show’ and ‘Terrible Love’), the singer used expressiveness, charisma and politics. He went into the audience in the latter, told Donald Trump to hell, to whose “balls” he dedicated ‘Frozen Oranges’, played the harmonica and rescued posters from the respectable establishment. He moved so much, sometimes so erratically, that people began commenting on whether he was drunk or high. I highly doubt that a person in such a state could do the spectacular recitation of ‘Nowhere Special’ as he did. Only more hits were missed, that is, The National’s usual repertoire. Their albums, well, they are not bad… nor very good either.
Something that cannot be blamed David Byrnewhich alternates solo songs as forceful as ‘Everybody Laughs’ with Talking Heads hits that are both punk and tropical. One of the most versatile careers that can come to mind. It’s funny that Matt Berninger had talked about “oranges” on the Orange Stage. By the time David Byrne’s dozen musicians and dancers had jumped on stage, all wearing orange jumpsuits, it looked more like a promo for ‘Orange Is the New Black’ than for the communications company. Byrne’s show, which sings with a headband microphone, seasoned with costumbrista and/or arty projections, is very fresh in its execution of choreography and scene movements, more typical of a theatrical work. In fact, there are no drums because he couldn’t move around the stage like the others, in what seems like a defense of creative freedom and expressiveness of body language.
An alternative to the great indie/underground night of Mad Cool, as you can see with enormous attachment to the alternative world of the 70s (Talking Heads), the 80s (Nick Cave), the 90s (Pulp) and the 2000s (The National) was the electronic tent The Loop, sponsored by Iberdrola. There I was able to witness part of each set of Nina Kraviz and Richie Hawtinboth up to the mark, up to the mark with lasers and BPM’s at least in the fragments I saw, and where they made you want to stay and live.
