Primavera Sound 2024, which will start this Wednesday, May 29 until Saturday, June 2, will not be the first with a 100% equal lineup. But the efforts to feminize the offer of the Barcelona macro festival reach a new milestone in this edition: achieving equality also among the headliners.
If the already converted pop institution Lana del Rey will lead the day on Friday, Saturday will be the big day for them: SZA, multi-awarded renewer of R
For years now, pop has been leaving behind the archetype of the diva/performer in favor of a more empowered female figure. In fact, if we go down to a second rank, the formula is repeated and it doesn’t hurt to list other names in the same line such as the former of Portishead Beth Gibbons, the Irish ex of Moloko Róisín Murphy or the feminist punk band Bikini Kill, to name a few. Saturday’s party would have already been complete if Londoner FKA Twigs, another icon of the female revolution in pop, had not announced, at the last minute and for the second consecutive year, that she will not be in Barcelona. It couldn’t all be good news.
At the same level as those mentioned, the festival maintains one foot in indie to which it owes its growth, prestige and success. There will be classics like the British Pulp, who reunited in 2023 to the delight of the most faithful Britpop fandom and who return to Primavera after 13 years. Or the classy rock of the Americans The National, who are already regulars at the festival (fifth time in recent years). Or the French electronic duo Justice, which promises a high-level disco atmosphere landing with an album fresh out of the oven, as do New Yorkers Vampire Weekend with their celebrated Only God was above us.
The poster, increasingly eclectic, intergenerational and endless, is completed with a total of 215 proposals spread across the 15 stages of the Forum. Given such magnitude, the most reasonable thing is to recommend that the interested party consult the programming. Special chapter deserves the presence of local groups in relevant positions, which refutes a criticism that was recurring towards Primavera. Namely, the former Manel Guillem Gisbert, Mushkaa, Derby Motoreta’s Burrito Kachimba, Ferran Palau, Renaldo
For the rest, the Barcelona festival – which returns to its traditional state after the double edition experiment with Madrid – will give what it has always given: many hours of uninterrupted music, lots of food and refreshments to regain strength and lots of multicultural crowds.