Of Montreal @ Primavera Closing Party




Well I trust now well over a week later my Primavera companions, like me, have just about recovered from the non-stop partying carried out over 6 nights and early mornings at Barcelona's (and dare I say one of Europe's) most wonderful music festivals. Yes, yes I know Sonar is on this weekend!

The depth, variety and geographical spread of musical talent which descended on Barcelona on June Bank Holiday weekend last was truly mind-boggling. Couple this with the logistical setup of the festival and you have a must-have experience for any music fan. The performance and drinks licence runs from 4p.m. to 7a.m. Thursday - Saturday with a closing party on Sunday night in a Barcelona Club 9p.m. - 6a.m. The peak time for the big name acts would be from about 1a.m. to 4 a.m.

The venue, El Parc del Fòrum conveniently located on one of the city's Metro lines is a purpose built outdoor entertainment venue by the sea with grassy knolls and an assortment of amphitheaters ranging from vast to intimate. Sitting on the top tier of one of the amphitheaters around midnight watching a near full moon reflect on the mediterranean and shoreline in front of an amphitheater packed with thousands of revelers will be an abiding memory.

Of course, besides the festival Barcelona is a wonderful city to visit for any reason and you will not be disappointed with its many charms. I wouldn't quite go as far as last year's must have T-Shirt at Sonar "Fuck Berlin, Barcelona has a beach", but it is close! (BTW guys, if anybody sees any of those T-Shirts out there this weekend at Sonar - Buy, buy, buy. There's a soon to be exquisitely valuable In Fact, Ah mug in it for you!)

We took one excursion away from the festival all weekend when we missed all the peak time acts on Friday night to go 40K outside Barcelona to a club called La Cova (it literally looks like a cave with a few bars stuck in the corners) to see Shitmat who was in town. Line of the weekend had to be from the awesome Shitmat himself after his gig when we were chatting to him "Oh, is there a festival on this weekend?".

As regards the festival (and Shitmat) from my own perspective (in its various states of lucidity over the few days) here's a loose order of hots and nots:

Hots
Battles
Shitmat
Slint
Girl Talk
The Fall
Band Of Horses
Of Montreal
Isis
Nathan Fake
Ivan Smagghe

I was a little disappointed to have missed Fujiya & Miyagi due to an unplanned diversion at the festival, but you've got to embrace the craic when it happens. Apparently F & M were really great.


Nots
Smashing Pumpkins
Dominik Eulberg
Justice
Erol Alkan

Some various video fragments spliced together are below.


At the end of the Girl Talk set which was insanely fun, Girl Talk stage dives, crowd surfs and then almost flattens some poor punter in a fall after which he professes his love for said punter.



Justice, meh. You've seen this done before, but here's them doing it.



Slint. Hadn't listened to these guys much before seeing them this time performing their album Spiderland. Wow and stuff!



Shitmat at La Cova. So we missed much of the peak time acts on Friday night at the festival to go the 40K outside Barcelona to see him. Boy, oh boy was it worth it. Major kudos to El Commandant P for marshaling the troops in the right direction and for the blags, it wasn't half bad craic getting backstage with Henry (that's Shitmat to you guys) after his set. The vid includes bits from before and after the main man's set, he's the clip in the middle in the blue shirt with no sleeves going bonkers behind the equipment.



So that was Primavera.





It was a pleasure always, and a pain to leave. So it was good; and so it must come to an end. Thanks!

tags: Primavera

Published by Paul.