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I have a Marriott Bonvoy account, I need to rack up some rewards points on it, next time I go to Spain I’m just doing that. (There’s luckily more of an abundance of good basic cheap hotels in Paris.)
You can live like a king for about $800/week in Eixample. This was a two bedroom with a terrace. For like $200 more you could add a pool. Close to the metros, restaurants plenty, and supermacardo’s around every corner. It’s absolutely worth it to pamper during the day, imo.
That said, even my swank hotel didn’t have a 24 hour desk. You’d have to get the security to let you in. It was enough of a push to see the sun rise every morning for me.
Hmm unfortunately it looks like I have to finish up my thoughts on this, so here goes.
On Saturday, due to a lack of sleep and a perhaps copious amount of alcohol consumption the past [muffled] days, I woke up with a pretty brutal hangover. However, I was not going to let that stop me. I had places to be, random ass Brazilian indie bands to see! I trudged over to the festival, grabbed a veggie burger (truly my biggest regret of the festival, I truly have no idea *why* I wanted to get a vegan food option *now*), and sat down on the steps of Cupra just in time for..
Sophia Chablau e Uma Enorme Perda Tempo: Armed with nothing but a jaunty spirit and a video screen displaying a QR code with their fall European tour dates on it, Sophia Chablau and her band lived up to the hype I had built up for them in my head. I wish I had enough energy to go down and dance in front of the stage at this part of the day, but I knew I needed to save up the stamina for the big ones later in the evening. Sophia Chablau herself was notably delightful and charismatic in her stage banter in English and Spanish; pretty remarkable for a band exclusively singing in Portuguese. As always, I’d highly recommend you check out these Brazilian bands - their indie scene is truly delivering some great stuff right now.
Slow Pulp - I caught up with FH and his wife on the rail of this set for the second big Chicago band of the weekend. I’m not the biggest fan of Slow Pulp’s music (I sometimes wish it was either a bit more shoegazey or a bit more energetic, or maybe both) but it translated perfectly to a mid-afternoon festival set. The sound was a lot cleaner liver which I think really helped, as did, of course, their seeming joy to have a pretty big European audience. And they noticed the flag. Thanks Slow Pulp!
Depresión Sonora: Not really committed on where to go next, I hung around on the lower level for a bit. There seems to be this microtrend of notably gothy post-punk bands bubbling around out there, but unlike say Molchat Doma there seemed to be way more of a rap influence on this band, both in vocal delivery and on the sound, which I appreciated. But wanting to venture off, I went over to…
Lisabö: …another rare Spanish band that felt really old school Primavera. They had two drummers, something I usually don’t like, especially when they’re playing the same rhythm as they often were here, but this was loud as shit and compelling enough to become a surprise favorite for me.
Él Mató a un Policía Motorizado: This band also played the first Primavera I went to in 2019 and appear to be a perennial favorite of this festival, which is good for them. It was a good spot to chill out and eat my pizza, a much better food option for a hangover in spite of the fact that someone did try and steal directly out of my hands. (??) Anyway, the band operates in that same Slow Pulp-ish territory but with a bit more anthemic songwriting; I also wish they’d commit a bit more to the shoegazier end of their sound. But I had a good time at this.
PJ Harvey: By this time, though, the weather was starting to get a little dark and stormy, and by the time I made it to Mordor, Zeus was fully blessing us. However, as the Spanish don’t believe in weather evacuations due to cultural reasons beyond my understanding, PJ Harvey pressed on, doused at the front of the stage while the worst of the worst in the audience opened their umbrellas. Luckily, I had my emergency (read: shitty) poncho and was able to find a spot in a weird dip in the ground that no one else was standing in fairly close to the stage, so I had a great view of PJ and her band. As always, PJ brought a singular intensity to her performance; like Beth Gibbons she performs in the center of a big band but whereas Beth’s voice floats highly off into the distance, PJ Harvey intones deeply while staring right at you. The rain certainly helped set a bit of atmosphere, but my the setlist by and large speaks for itself, including “Let England Shake” included among the early set’s ballads and “50ft Queenie” in the punk back half, and thank god ending with “To Bring You My Love”, maybe one of the most ideal set-closing songs any artist has up their sleeve. Total perfection.
Mitski: I feel torn about Mitski. I really, really have not liked her last two albums but she’s made her fair share of great albums at this point and regardless of what sounds she chooses to pursue (wisely or not), this show made it clear she sees herself first and foremost as a storyteller and executes that role incredibly well. The last time I saw Mitski on the Laurel Hell tour, she mimed her way around on stage in 2014 St. Vincent or uhhh 1980-present David Byrne-style choreography around stage accompanied by a symbolic door. Here, it was just her on a platform, surrounded by her band, as she pushed her choreography to new and truly strange heights, notably panting like a dog on all fours while singing “I Bet on Losing Dogs”. The effect is disorienting and mesmerizing. This is the best, most refined version of Mitski’s show to date; shame it had to accompany that album.
Princess Superstar: But fuck me talking about one of the best performance artists of my generation! We need to talk about somebody who had a weird viral moment after her song was in Saltburn! The rain hadn’t subsided by this point, and I and my phone were soaked, but still Princes Superstar’s crowd managed to rage through a truly fascinating set. At first, Princess Superstar was accompanied on stage with four scantily clad dancers, all of whom were very talented and all of whom immediately started pussy popping as soon as they got the chance. She opened with her hit from Saltburn and did it two other times throughout her set, and halfway through brought out a *fifth* dancer, this time a voguer! I think Princess Superstar and Peaches bring a similar energy to their live performances, a sort of half-sung, half-rapped performance accompanied by a true entourage of unexpected side performers who would ordinarily drown out their leader’s performance if that leader wasn’t so captivating in the first place. Fully energized, I had to see another act just like this one, so I went to:
American Football: Just kidding! I actually wanted to see Bikini Kill but misread the schedule. It ended up being fine of course, but around this time Theo texted me he needed to meet up with me. We met at this set, where I caught the band as they were wrapping up. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen American Football but they hit the dreamy spot between shoegaze and emo just right, in a way I wish bands like Slow Pulp came closer to doing. Anyway, Theo caught up with me and unfortunately he was the first victim of our sleep situation and had to leave. But damnit, I wasn’t going to give in! I got a Red Bull and made it onward to…
Mandy, Indiana: First of all, I want to give credit to Mandy, Indiana’s screen background of a little DVD-style icon with their name on it bouncing around the screen. Second of all, this was pretty good but if anyone complains to you about electronic music not being real music because it’s all just button pushers (something I don’t think anyone has done since 2009 but all the same), point them to this band because the live instrumentation was so prominent in the mix it overpowered the interesting electronic elements, changing the sound a lot in the process. It wasn’t bad, but I did find myself wishing for a little bit more.
ATARASHII GAKKO!!: Fortunately, I got more pretty soon. I have this galaxy brain sociological theory that despite the fact that most K-pop that crosses over in the west aligns with pop trends (see also for a similar but unrelated trend: more K-pop artists using Afrobeats influences in their music), but most J-pop that crosses over in the west is weird one way or another: anime-adjacent bands, sci-fi innovators like Perfume, or bands with such huge personalities and memorable choreography you’d swear they were built in a lab for TikTok fame. ATARASHII GAKKO!! was never intended for TikTok because they debuted years before that app ever even gained ground, but if you’ve ever seen them do that viral live routine where de facto leader Suzuka grabs Mizyu’s pigtails as if she’s riding a motorcycle, you know what the appeal is. They of course did that routine here as well as every other eye-catching move they had, my personal favorite maybe being the unusual raised-fist, head-jerking two step of “OTONABLUE” which manages to be so simple and so odd simultaneously it ends up being deeply fascinating. Ultimately not every song of theirs is great, which is…interesting considering how long they’ve been around but in spite of all my theorizing and all my whining at the end of the day this was deeply, deeply entertaining and that’s all I ask for.
Charli XCX: The broad theme of this day ended up being charisma, of all different kinds: Sophia Chablau as classic rock frontman, PJ Harvey as intense bandleader, Mitski as pop choreographer spun into high art, Princess Superstar as cabaret queen, ATARASHII GAKKO!! as a girl group for a purely visual age. But nobody holds a candle to Charli XCX’s live charisma. Basically, no one does. In the past few years, Charli has gone back and forth between solo stage commander and dancer-accompanied almost-pop princess, but in the week before Brat Summer hard launched Charli debuted an only slightly modified variation of the stage show she’s been doing for five years, but with the kind of attitude no one can be taught. I’ve always loved Charli’s 2019-era two giant cubes and a microphone stage setup for its weird visual reference point setting the stage for a kind of, well, hyper pop, but this was different: a literal green screen torn down immediately to reveal nothing but flashing white lights while Charli stuts up and down on stage in sunglasses at 2:30 AM. And yet, these songs demand nothing else than that, especially with the release of Brat now firmly in the rearview mirror. But I feel lucky I got to see this show before the album came out: Charli XCX has elevated her cult stardom to arena levels, but she’s always been a club kid at heart, and I’m going to guess this is the last time you can see the club-oriented version of that show before the arena side takes over.
I wanted to see Pelada and Legowelt and Teki Latex but at this point I simply could not handle being awake anymore and decided to instead power nap at the hostel before my all too early flight back home. I raced back, took a 3 hour nap, and raced back to BCN on my flight back to Montreal, then Chicago. I passed out so hard on the plane back the flight attendants literally had to move me multiple times to push the carts through. Some final thoughts:
1) Having not been since 2019, the lack of Bits was disappointing, but whatever logistical difficulties they’d had post-COVID have disappeared. Barring some stage moves, this festival essentially felt the same as it did five years ago, which I appreciate.
2) If it wasn’t insanely expensive to fly to Barcelona, this festival would come pretty close to being the best bang for your buck probably anywhere in the world. If only this was happening in London or Paris or Reykjavik or whatever.
3) I mean…..that’s about it. The music speaks for itself. I want to give a special shout out to the Inforoo crew that really made this experience extra special since last time I was only here with my family: pablo, bing, FH, hoffm83n, and of course, my roommate Theo, who almost certainly endured me snoring a queen bed with him, didn’t say anything about it, and still took a picture of me holding a hot dog in a kind of funny way. This festival is truly fantastic and unparalleled in its structure and it shocks me that the Spaniards for whom this in their backyard don’t sell it out every year. Oh well: more for everyone else.
That’s it! Someday I’ll get around to typing up my notes about Paris, and I do have most of my stuff about Pitchfork written up so I’ll get around to that eventually. It’s just so hard when you’re a jet setter living the lifestyle your worst enemies are seething with jealousy about (not sure who those people are but I’ll find out eventually).