The Sex Pistols tour with its new vocalist, Frank Carter, has elapsed since August last year, but Carter is aware of his position – literally that of John Lydon – and presents Sex Pistols in the third person during the group of the group at the Cruïlla festival of Barcelona this Thursday: “You are seeing the best punk band in history,” she.
You may not need to fully integrate the training of Sex Pistols when he already leads his own bands, in the plural. However, Carter is a sensational vocalist to convey the punk force of Sex Pistols songs: his hoarse and powerful voice, which sounds fierce in ‘problems’, maintains the level of the classics but, in turn, brings them closer to a current sensitivity.
Carter also acts as a master of ceremonies, while the original members of Sex Pistols, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock, look concentrated playing their instruments. He even goes down to the public at a point in the show and interprets ‘Bodies’ in the midst of a swirl of people: for a moment I fear for his physical integrity, but Carter returns to the stage without any problem.
The last concert of the day offers a pure punk-rock banquet around the ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ material, which drives the audience crazy as they arrive ‘God Save the Queen’ and ‘Anarchy in the UK’, and that reveals a surprise in the form of ‘My Way’ by Frank Sinatra.
If Wednesday in Cruïlla was oriented to the adolescent and youth public, following the performances of artists such as Girl in Red or Gracie Abrams (the organization itself says), Thursday’s own focused on the “classics” (with Sex Pistols and Fermín Muguruza at the head) and the popular rhythms of reggae, ska, punk or rumba that have defined the editorial line of Cruïlla since its inception.
Samba’s percussions abounded in the presentation of Seu Jorgerenovator of the genre with biography worthy of biopic. The Brazilian, dressed in a green shirt with the word “samba” printed in the middle, broken down his successes accompanied by a band that, in addition to guitar and drums, included winds and percussions of different types. Seu Jorge built a cheerful and relaxed atmosphere thanks to the samba rhythms of ‘Boa people were attracted to’ Carolina ‘, which took the public gently towards the last hours of the afternoon.
Political messages were the order of the day, especially in the presentations of Dr. Kilombowho encouraged the early hours of the afternoon with their cheerful rhythms of rumba and gypsy jazz, and, above all, Fermín Muguruza, which distributed hundreds of posters to the public with the Palestine flag on one face and that of Lebanon in the other, to raise them at the end of the show. Before, he pointed out to “the denialists of climate change” for the fires that the Baix Ebre rings these days.
Muguruza, who acted next to a large band that included three trumpets, an accordion and an MC that encouraged the cotarro as in the Reggae or Dancehall shows, reviewed the extensive material of his career in Kortatu and alone, within the framework of his 40th anniversary tour, while occasionally he went to the public in a perfect Catalan.
Memories to figures such as Nelson Mandela and Aitor Zabaleta, as well as the struggles of the Basque and Kurdish villages, were intertwined in a holiday and combative set of ska, reggae and punk, which also included a relevant claim of the Barcelona neighborhood of Vallcarca, currently threatened by the evictions.
St. Vincent bent to his role as rocker deranged in Cruïlla, in the presentation of his album ‘All Born Screaming’. Annie Clark fell the microphone, or she fell, or launched her electric guitar furiously against the ground, before going to the bambalins, in a clear presentation of a performative nature that the public received with fascination and confusion. A monitors technician continuously intervened to adjust to Clark his petaca, while she followed her own.
Well, because St. Vincent’s songs are not so well known outside the United States, or because his humor does not end up being understood, the presentation abused the uncomfortable silences. It gave the impression that St. Vincent’s sound quality generated respect: to see her with her band gutting her electric guitar in ‘Broken Man’ or ‘Birth in reverse’ left with his mouth open.
The role of insane rocker led St. Vincent to perch on the public during his interpretation of ‘New York’, and do all kinds of cucamons that caused authentic laughter. However, his humor did not always transfer to the other side. For example, during his presentation of ‘Violent Times’, he apologized for having recorded an album in Spanish, but most of the public escaped the joke because he does not know that such an album exists.
