Primavera Sound Review
After years of desperately wanting to attend Primavera Sound in Barcelona, I was finally able to get a taste of what the world-renowned festival had to offer for so many years this past weekend in Los Angeles. The festival first came onto my radar after seeing a handful of my favorite artists were billed to perform at their Barcelona edition back in 2019. That alone piqued my interest to get on a plane and fly halfway across the world for the next one, but those plans never materialized for obvious reasons. Fortunately, the debut of Primavera Sound’s Los Angeles edition certainly lives up to the legacy of the festival’s twenty-year history.
The three-day occasion took place from September 16-18 at the Los Angeles State Historic Park near the heart of Downtown LA. In the spirit of the festival’s roots, the LA edition strayed away from the predictable festival lineups with its vast array of artists spanning several genres, countries and genders. The headliners for the event included Lorde, Nine Inch Nails and Arctic Monkeys; each artist/group pushing music forward in their own respective ways. Additionally, the lineup included artists like the funky and psycho-jazzy instrumentals of Khruangbin, the soft and melancholic new nostalgia of PinkPantheress, the dreamy underground Latin sounds of Sangre Nueva, Buscabulla’s sweet vocals over slow tempo synth pop and Afro percussions, and so many others. To put it simply, Primavera Sound brought its full musical experience stateside and showed its new audience why they’ve existed for two decades.
The festival grounds were packed throughout the three-day event with most attendees coming through as the sun began to set to avoid the end of summer heat. But there were definitely benefits to coming early; lines for food, merch and other various sponsored activities were nonexistent, and getting a great view of the multiple stages was significantly easier despite the crowds being quite large. Walking around the festival grounds during this time was perfect as well, giving early birds an all-to-yourself type feel. I used this time to check out the extensive food offerings curated by Smorgasburg LA (my personal favorite of the weekend was the Lobster Nest from Lobsterdamus), and the onsite vinyl market brought to the festival by KCRW and Beat Swap Meet.
But, of course, the main reason for attending Primavera Sound was the music. The festival had a staggered schedule with minimal overlap with the exception of a handful of sets starting and ending at the same time. Thankfully, I managed to walk away this weekend unscathed as the artists I was most excited to see had very little overlap. The only issue that I had was that I would have to leave certain sets early to catch another. Frankly, that was hardly an issue and typical of any festival experience, especially one that covers three days with 65 artists divided among four stages.
As for the music itself, Lights Down Low kicked off the event on the Smirnoff Ice Stage as ecstatic attendees made their way onto the festival grounds. This incredibly underrated stage featured DJs spinning all sorts of music from the beginning to the end of the festival. The vibes here were always immaculate with various groups of people dancing, or taking in the music under the shade provided by the park’s trees. I absolutely loved Sherelle’s absolute banger of a set on this stage. I recently came across her music thanks to her latest Boiler Room set and instantly fell in love. She brought that same energy and the crowd reciprocated creating the perfect union of performer and audience.
Over on the Barcelona Stage, Drain Gang, the music collective from Sweden, brought their melodic cloud rap for a beautiful golden hour set on Saturday. They opened with their hit song, “Western Union,” and the crowd went wild as soon as the instrumental began to play as the members of the collective ran onto the stage. The group has an incredibly strong following online, and they certainly came through for this set. Hearing them scream the chorus (“One shot, click-click-click, reload, reload, reload”) instantly gave me goosebumps. Personally, I’m not too familiar with Drain Gang’s discography outside of a few releases, but I find it hard to believe how anyone could walk away from that set and not be a fan.
The Tecate Alta Stage featured plenty of big names that I absolutely love including Mitski, James Blake, Cigarettes After Sex, and Surf Curse, but I was most excited to see PinkPantheress. She started her set with “Break it off” which threw the crowd into a frenzy. In return, she matched their energy, constantly dancing from one side to the other and back to the center, showing love to everyone along the way. In between songs, she would stop to talk to the crowd, asking one person what their hair care routine was, and also pointed out a fan she recognized from her headlining tour stop in LA back in May. Her set was so personable and down to earth; easily one of my favorite performances of the festival.
As for the festival’s main stage, the Primavera Stage was nothing short of incredible and stacked from start to finish. Lorde wowed the audience with her incredible set design in support of her latest release, Solar Power, Paloma Mami mesmerized her fans with her honey-sweet vocals and choreography, and Shy Girl had the whole crowd screaming her lyrics to “Slut” and “Coochie,” and even performed an unreleased track.
But I have to say the best set on this stage, and perhaps the whole festival goes to Machine Girl. The energy from start to finish was leagues beyond what I’ve ever witnessed from a live performance. The duo’s frontman, Matt Stephenson, constantly moved from one side of the stage to the other, headbanging and swinging his arms wildly. He then took it to the next level when he jumped into the crowd and performed the rest of the song from there. I thought that was the end of it after he returned to the stage, but he jumped right back into the crowd and continued the performance from there. The whole time the crowd followed and created a mosh pit around him. After this song ended, he returned to the stage, but quickly went back into the audience for the third time to crowd surf and mosh with his fans as he performed the last song. Before ending his set, he thanked the crowd and Primavera Sound for an incredible show, and everyone screamed in agreement. Truly an experience that can only be found at Primavera Sound.
