First day at full lungs of a Primavera Sound that allowed the public to flow easily on the pilgrimage between stages, which on Thursday became more bearable thanks to the clouds that acted as a parasol for much of the day. There were expectations to know if the reduction in capacity and the new distribution of the venue would serve to avoid the collapses experienced on the first day of the previous edition, and it was so in the afternoon session. No one queued longer than usual in an event of this kind, and there were no more suffocations than those caused by the excitement of the fans to see their idols on stage.
Antónim had the honor of opening the festival half an hour late. Their electronic-tinged folk with a Lleida accent was presented on the big Amazon Music stage. However, the attention fell on the adjacent Brugal stage, where a hundred young people gathered, some running, to take positions before the astonishment of the Heathers, who were performing at 5 p.m. It wasn’t them, who they were waiting for, but Red Velvet, the Korean girls who raise passions with their K-pop, and who didn’t perform until… 8.45 pm, almost 5 hours that the fans were conjured to wait.
With more of an audience on Amazon Music, it was Joe Crepúsculo’s turn and his highly danceable synth pop with 80s and 90s dance floor (and crash car) influences that blew it out of proportion the concurrence with his spasmodic pop that adds flamenco mixes to tracks like A fuego.
While on the Estrella Damm stage the rock chords mixed with jazz and leisurely folk of the English Black Country, New Road sounded, at the Cupra one of the first hidden gems to shine this Spring was revealed, Floweroflove, the London teenager with colorful afro hair who is revolutionizing Generation Z with the pop and psychedelic soul tracks he composes while walking the runway at Paris Fashion Week for brands like Gucci.
After the British singer’s recital, it was enough to turn around to find a sound proposal diametrically opposed to that of Ghost. The Swedish heavy metal band appeared on a stage converted into a Gothic cathedral, with Tobias Forge wearing skeleton face make-up. With their masked acolytes, they performed songs from their satanic discography in front of an audience that followed the concert with more curiosity than interest, magnetized by the band’s double hype.
At the same time, the singer, violinist and composer Sudan Archives unleashed on the Plenitude stage her latest and acclaimed work, Natural Brown Prom Queen, moving to the rhythm of soul, hip-hop and rhythm
The afternoon passed and at 8 p.m. the audience began to gather on the central stage. You didn’t want to miss a day that on Friday premiered the live broadcast through Amazon Music’s Twitch channel. Performances such as Blur, Alex G or Arlo Parks were the first to be seen live and for free both through the social network and Amazon Prime.
Although it will always be better live, especially from bands like Turnstyle, who unfolded on the Estrella Damm stage their hardcore punk, updating nineties guitars with electronic bases, a very different format than what NxWorries offered in the twin stage Hip-hop and soul to welcome the night, during which the performances of New Order, Halsey and Blur were expected to leave hints of music that have resisted until dawn.
