«Thursday for the kid, Friday and Saturday for the Puretas». This is how Javi Ferrara de Parquesvr described the dynamics of most festivals in our country. It also served to describe this same edition of Tomavistas, who lived yesterday his most alternative day. Without counting some exception, such as elite or sound depression, the Madrid festival dismissed its ninth edition with a program dedicated mainly to electronics lovers and sensations.
It has also been a delivery with less expected assistants, which on the other hand has been a blessing for those who have gone. Without queues, without suffocation by agglomeration, without dancing squeezed … Do you know what it is to leave your friends to go to fill the glass and find them again without problem? The organization will not comment on the same, but we have not missed more people.
Yard act They arrived from Leeds to go directly to the crux with their post punk and playful post, prepared to dance to the main stage taking advantage that the sun was giving a break. Even so they did not start with the heavy artillery and opted for a show that was assaulted as it advanced. This was directly reflected in the figure of vocalist James Smith, who managed to infect his chaotic energy to the public.
With the aura of a charismatic weapon trafficker, with pink glasses and everything, he had no problem throwing the micro support as if it were a rag or singing lying mouth down on the ground. ‘When the Laughter Stops’ and ‘We Make Hits’, a song that works equally live, were the most enjoyed in a set built completely for festivals. ‘100% Endurance’ marked the tone of the next concerts with its most contemplative and friendly nature.
The perfect appetizer before the trip that was Mogwai. I did not know the Scots, but from the beginning I had the feeling of being in front of a cult band without knowing it. That so many people congregate to listen to this type of music so carefully is not normal at a festival, but it was the norm yesterday in Tomavistas. The concert flowed as an electronic session, but replacing all the elements with rock instruments. I did not enter fully into the show until the third song arrived, ‘i’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead’. From that moment I just let myself carry.
There was so much respect for the group that a person did not hesitate to turn to ask one of my companions silence: “Please lower the ton.” I had never happened to me at a festival. A few minutes later, another group began to laugh high at their moves and the same person looked at them with a total murderous face. He just wanted to be immersed in the world of Mogwai with nothing more in his ears. In part, I understand. Music is a sound wall full of layers and textures, distortion and emotion. It is almost absurd to make differences between songs, since it was enjoyed as a unified experience.
As if suddenly he was within ‘The Wizard of Oz’, another character entered the story. This was a man who represented the opposite of the grumpy in front of him: «Don’t you like this? Neither does it, ”he releases me. He tells me that Mogwai are “little”, although he also recommends his best albums. “They are very good, but you have to have been born in the 80s,” he tells me without cutting. The average age was definitely around those dates, so it was not so badly aimed. However, I was born 20 years later, I did enjoy the concert.
In the last third, musicians are wrapped in colorful lights while increasing revolutions epic. The last song is a delicate piece that alternates moments of total calm, almost ambient, with a final euphoric full of noise and strength. Well, I don’t lie if I say that the public’s “shhhh” were heard more than music, trying to shut up any minimum comment that arose between the attendees. What is this? The attack of the Puretas? In pure musical culmination, one of these let out a guttural scream as if they had run over their foot, but I think it was only the euphoria released.
In this plan we go to Kiasmoswhich offered the most peaceful party he has been. The set did not give so much place to attention as in Mogwai, but promoted the conversation. If I say it is music to have in the background, surely it is misunderstood, but it is not necessarily something negative. The music is elegant, lovely and dreamy, and with it the conversations charge another face. In the most lively moments, he is a kind Rave. The opposite of hardcore. You are dancing and you are not able to remember when you have begun to do it.
This atmosphere of peace was completely broken with the elite concert on the next stage. Here were two options: Awakening the trance with the synthesized punk of the Tàrrega duo or continuing to surf the electronic wave with Kelly Lee Owens In the third stage, which did offer a more club experience. If you chose the second option, you had to be fast. Owens got something that had not happened any day, and that is that his enclosure became so full that he had to be queued to enter. Being a covered scenario, there was capacity limit. I could see half of the last song and it was like straining a fiestón that could well have been in operation for decades. The artist, solo, with a keyboard to each side to the mode of Nacho Cano, dazzled the public with her beats and without strucking her hair.
The brave ones who stayed to see The elite They were not part of their typical audience. Some twenty people left under the stones, but mainly the public was made up of older people. This was clear in the succession of the first songs, with ‘Sad History’, ‘Get away from me’ and ‘Blue Blood’. That had nothing to do with the concert they gave at the same festival two years ago, in a much smaller stage and with people who knew what was going. In this, with the exception of some people in the front row, everyone was stiff.
God and Nil did what they could to encourage the rock. Throw beers, for example. Even so, not a pogo. In an elite concert, this is very serious. At one point, the vocalist got fed up and ordered Al people to open the biggest circle they could. It was totally worth it. When he broke and all the people collided in the center, between shoves and jumps, he already felt he was in an elite concert.
ROMYwith the difficult task of closing an entire festival, he managed to congregate all the different audiences of the day for the final party. The peace and union of kiasmos combined perfectly with the party spirit of Kelly Lee Owens. From the beginning of the set with ‘Lifetime’, the feeling is pure bliss. For visuals, a sky without a horizon, a sea without a shore … perfect music to close the curtain with much love. The same one that the public transmits to Romy at all times, even when the show must stop a moment to fix a “technical problem.” It is then that people chant their name, encouraging her to continue. The problem is really brief and the party continues its natural course.
In the final stretch, The XX member focuses on putting everyone dancing, starting with ‘She’s on My Mind’ and that great remix of the ‘Into You’ of Ariana Grande. Thus, the last three songs represented the greatest collective dance that I have lived in a festival. ‘Enjoy Your Life’ opened the ban with that simple but necessary title message, and Romy received a well -deserved ovation for it. ‘Loud Places’ resulted in a beautiful moment, with a focus pointing to Romy while sanging, as if it were a musical scene. The precious transition to ‘Strong’ was the cake of the cake for a perfect festival ending.
