Part tasting menu for music’s cutting edge, part knees up by the sea with a pinch of Spanish Glastonbury thrown in, Primavera Sound celebrated its 15th year this month. The festival in fact stretches throughout April and May, taking over a host of venues across Barcelona, though the fulcrum of the action occurred over the last few days (May 28-31) on stages at the city’s El Parc del Forum which sits right on the cost. Ranging from local talents and introductory Spanish shows for highly-rated newcomers like SOAK and The Bohicas, to heavyweight festival appearances from the established acts including The Strokes, The Black Keys, Interpol and the newly reunited Ride, this year’s Primavera pumped out a vibrant variety of sounds deep into the night. Experienced campaigners like Caribou, Baxter Dury, Belle & Sebastian (curiously Stuart Murdoch seems to have reinvented himself as a twee Springsteen and it’s quite bewitching) and the aforementioned US trio gave the festival a solid backbone, but possibly saying as much for current musical trends – the speeds at which acts are promoted from early gigs to weighty festival slots – lower down the bill, 2015 threw up few newer bands with catalogues or performances that demanded the attention across an entire set, though many of them did provided individual moments of magic that bode well for the future. Fortunately part of Primavera’s charm is that with so many stages and so much music overlapping, it’s possible for fans to skip their way from stage to stage, taking in act after act like a human shuffle, creating actual musical journeys across the site. In that exploratory spirit, here’s Primavera Sound 2015’s 20 best moments in playlist form. Happy human shuffling…
Paul Stokes@stokesie
For more, including details of next year’s festival, head to Primaverasound.es.
