Gone are the times when it seemed historic to us that a former Operación Triunfo contestant performs at Primavera Sound. And although it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing Pablo López perform at the festival one day – since I highly doubt he would have an audience at this specific festival – it makes perfect sense for him to do so. Natalia Lacunzawho has contributed so much to bringing internet pop closer to the Spanish mainstream pop, vindicating the people of Russia IDK long before Rusowsky’s ‘Malibu’ burst onto the charts.
His set at Levi’s Plaza is brief, as the small stage dictates, and unfortunately the beginning is plagued by technical problems that especially ruin the performance of ‘You fell in love’, but Lacunza solves it vocally. Their album ‘N2STAL5IA’ does not deserve this technical neglect, but at least it manages to condense a good part of its tracklist in a very brief concert, where the electronics of ‘Singapore’, the folk of ‘Nokia’ and the collective chorus of ‘You know what’ stand out. Lacunza “manifests” at least one “50 minutes” concert next year. From here, we subscribe to it.
I advance that the priority of obtaining a more or less decent place to witness Olivia Rodrigo’s surprise concert forces us to abandon the recital of Smerz on the Port stage, which means missing out on the groovy strings of ‘You Got Time and I Got Money’ and the pounding piano of ‘Roll the Dice’, which arrive at the end. But what happens before confirms that attending the set, even for a little while, is totally worth it.
The beginning with ‘But I do’ is somewhat cold, perhaps due to the industrial tone of the song, but the musicality of Smerz’s proposal soon imposes itself: its range of strings, dry beats, slightly out of tune pianos and melodies that do not quite resolve, sung almost with reluctance, end up hypnotizing. In the middle of the sunset, the jazzy pianos of ‘What’, the beautiful ‘A thousand lies’, the rhythm of ‘Feisty’ or the enveloping keyboards of ‘Easy’ make up a very rich instrumental setlist, played with great delicacy and taste, in contrast to the twisted love of the songs. A friend, who doesn’t know the group, says that they have a “very nice sound”, which I interpret to mean that Smerz, thanks to his precise live performance, is able to reach new audiences.
Since Gabi Ruiz announced that the Primavera Sound lineup contained a surprise headliner, the first rumors began to explode; Some pointed to Charli xcx, who had just visited Barcelona to attend a party where her husband, George Daniel, was DJing. However, his next flight to Sicily to attend Dua Lipa’s wedding made his participation difficult, which ultimately involved Olivia Rodrigowho has decided to offer the first official full-length concert of his new album in Barcelona, a year before the Unravel Tour lands in Spain.
The Occident stage brings together an intractable crowd before the start of the concert, scheduled at 10:45 p.m., a sign of the expectation generated by this surprise performance by one of the biggest international sensations of the last five years.
The next surprise in Olivia Rodrigo’s set was the appearance of Robert Smith, from The Cure, to perform an unreleased song, ‘What’s Wrong with Me?’, right after ‘The Cure’, a song that Olivia had introduced alluding to The Cure, one of her favorite bands, who played the previous day. For Rodrigo, one of the “best fucking concerts of my life.”
The new song, with a melancholic new wave style, can be heard officially on June 12 and opens an unexpected commercial door for Smith.
In total, in a concert that has not reached an hour in length, Rodrigo’s debut at Primavera has included zero filler songs, as dictated by the lack of time: opening with the rock euphoria of ‘Bad Idea Right’, the first hyper-sharp guitar hits have evoked hard rock echoes shortly before Rodrigo burst onto the stage. Anyone who considers Rodrigo a rock poser just because he has a certain cheesy flair in his lyrics and presentation has had to eat his words in the face of the rock power of his sound.
Rodrigo, who fulfills his dream of performing at Primavera Sound, has chained one anthem after another with the mega-chorable choruses of ‘ballad of a homeschooled girl’ and ‘Vampire’, before presenting the new ‘Drop Dead’ and sitting down at the piano to perform his great ballad, ‘Drivers License’, continuing with the already too pastel ‘Traitor’ and culminating with the exciting crescendo of ‘The Cure’, which has given way to the celebrated cameo.
Pronouncing the word “fuck” at least ten times during the concert, in moments that were not always appropriate, Rodrigo was unable to leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth in a set of approximately 50 minutes. Aside from the fact that he had the detail of singing ‘Deja Vu’ and closing with the punk-pop torpedo of ‘Good 4 U’, shooting adrenaline levels to the maximum, we must highlight the quality of the sound of his instruments and his voice, at the height of his privileged position.
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Marina, apotheosis
Marina’s first concert at Primavera Sound is also the first of her career in Barcelona. Madrid is used to seeing her live – at festivals, but also at that gig supporting Coldplay -; Barcelona, no. Marina doesn’t understand: “Spring, why did it take you so long to invite me?” she asks with a wink. Nobody explains it, but Diamandis more than makes up for the wait with an incredible pop set in which, at times, she seems like a worthy headliner. For his most dedicated fans, including myself, it is.
In 50 minutes of concert, Marina goes straight to the point, chaining one hit after another without relying on anything other than her live band. His stage presence is magnetic enough that he doesn’t need anything else. The start with ‘Princess of Power’ and ‘Are You Satisfied?’ It serves to warm up the engines in a show based on a video game aesthetic. Next, the punk-pop of ‘Bubblegum Bitch’ opens the season for a string of iconic songs that will not let up: the public chants and jumps like crazy to a song that TikTok has revitalized.
‘Butterfly’ and ‘Man’s World’, in the central section of the setlist, followed by ‘I Am Not a Robot’, supported by that operatic voice of his, form a triad of singles that are very recognizable to his fans. The same does not happen with ‘Metallic Stallion’, which, drifting towards disco rhythms, ends up mixed with the chorus of ‘Hung Up’ by Madonna for some reason, provoking the typical collective chorus designed to please the audience, although in this case it is somewhat forced.
The heavy artillery arrives with the succession of ‘Froot’, ‘Cuntissimo’ and ‘Primadonna’, which provokes collective delirium. It is especially exciting to hear ‘Froot’ chanted by so many people: eleven years after its release (in 2015, the writer of this proclaimed it the best song of the year in this medium), it is confirmed that it was a song ahead of its time and completely timeless. The closing album with ‘I Love You’ serves as a way for Marina to vindicate her latest album and put the icing on the cake to a glorious, although too short, set.
