THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Hopefully you tracked DiS’s adventures through Primavera Sound 2008 as we went along, thanks to our daily diaries – find them on our Festivals sub-site if you skipped ‘em before. _Or_, merely read on for Team DiS’s picks of the annual beachside festival, held at the Parc Del Forum, Barcelona, at the end of May.

Official Primavera Sound site: here

Words: Mike Diver, Kate Hewett, Kev Kharas, Tom King, Samuel Strang, Luke Turner, Rob Webb

Photos: Gary Wolstenholme

Shellac

Apparently, some Primavera attendees leave Shellac’s ATP Stage set disappointed. I’ve no idea what set they were watching – I can only assume that somehow their eyes were pointed the way of Albini, Weston and Trainer, running through their customary playfulness while simultaneously meeting audience gazes with glares that could kill, but their ears were tuned to everything but ‘The End Of Radio’. It’s one of many highlights, one of many offerings that not only gets heads nodding but feet moving, fast, and bodies leaping like migrating salmon. This is ferocious, astounding; it’s sloppy, loose, with spaces where once there were words; but it’s phenomenal, more so, for the relative lack of tautness on show. ‘Prayer To God’ is aired, predictably, yet it’s a song that can never be aired enough; tonight it, like its surrounding material, isn’t LP perfect, but that’s what makes it so much more special. And it’s still, after ‘Stagger Lee’, the second most brilliantly bad/kick-ass song ever. Disappointed? Fuck, man, you don’t know you’re alive. MD

Why?

Adversity? Pah! Yoni Wolf and his Why? colleagues laugh in the face of obstacles that others would deem overwhelming to deliver a CD Drome set that’s a highlight of not only Primavera’s Friday, but the whole festival. Mumps, a broken hand – these things, while capable of delaying UK dates, do not halt the ensemble as they weave merrily through selections from this year’s magnificent Alopecia LP, diversions into Elephant Eyelash territories warmly welcomed too. ‘These Few Presidents’ receives an almost teary sing-along, the line “even though I haven’t seen you in years, yours is a funeral I’d fly to from anywhere” choking up the front few rows, and ‘Song Of The Sad Assassin’ is similarly revered by the faithful, who assemble en masse. Yoni might never look totally comfortable, but even while this isn’t Why? at their very best it’s a set to last long in the (free) beer-battered memory banks. MD

Portishead

Portishead play a pair of shows this Primavera Sound, beginning on the outdoor Rockdelux Stage before following that with an indoor set at the Auditori; Geoff Barrow will later tell DiS he much preferred the Auditori set, but we catch him alongside Adrian, Beth and assembled musicians right beside the Mediterranean, which laps at the rear of one of the festival’s two ‘big’ stages. Early efforts from comeback LP Third are respectfully bopped along to, and the band’s visuals are intoxicatingly ace, but the distant drone of Boris on the ATP Stage does its best to disrupt the atmosphere (apparently someone in Portishead’s management circle politely asks the Japanese titans to turn down a little). Once their stride is struck, though, no distraction is loud enough: ‘Machine Gun’ sees Chuck D bound on stage for a few bars, and come ‘Glory Box’ we’re all in the palm of Barrow and company’s collective hand. They might’ve been away, but very little can halt Portishead’s return to critical and commercial dominance on this imperious form. MD

Pissed Jeans

Pissed Jeans are a force of nature, a band dismantling and reconstructing decayed punk-rock formulas in twisted-as-fuck shapes that make no sense to the many but translate perfectly to the few risking sunburn down the front at half seven at the ATP Stage. Vocalist Matt Korvette battles his band’s music – they lay the foundations, he comes at them with acid-burn spit, claws with spread, sinewy fingers; he undresses to impress, rubs his wobbly gut, slams his frame into colleagues with no respect for the riffs that may be damaged in the process. Actually, perhaps that’s his point: this music needs violence to be properly heard, it needs this visual car-crash of an above-and-beyond performance to find form, focus, a strange and alien panache absent in a million other noisy rockers. They’re not in this business to make friends – their MySpace makes that perfectly clear. They’re in it to piss you off. And, accidentally, to make you realise they’re fucking incredible. MD

Les Savy Fav

It goes without saying that a bonkers frontman alone does not a great set make. Lucky for Les Savy Fav, then, that they are more than capable of backing up Tim Harrington's now-infamous onstage lunacy with material that could win over the most staunch non-believer (should such a person still exist). In a set comprised almost entirely of material from 2007's Let's Stay Friends, they pit the album's dance-punk melodies against an atmosphere so defiantly jubilant that it makes us dance until our chests ache. The rest of the band look on nonchalantly as their frontman careers around the stage like a man possessed and, in a move totally befitting the upbeat mood that they have crafted for themselves and all of us, he dedicates _'The Year Before The Year 2000' _to Prince, before disappearing offstage to party with the crowd. Awesome. KH

The Sonics

Garage-rock legends The Sonics tonight stand before a crowd whose average age is probably about a third of that of the heroes onstage before them. As they tear through material that changed the lives of artists from Kurt Cobain to James Murphy, though, it's pretty easy to justify the stir they've resurrected since breaking their hiatus of some 30 years and returning to the stage. Close your eyes, see, and this could be 40 years ago. In spite of the grey hairs, Gerry Roslie still howls like a man being burned alive and, as we witness them hammer the hell out of tunes as utterly legendary as 'Witch' and 'Psycho', in a manner almost certainly inadvisable for men of their ages, it's pretty clear that this is a performance that's outstanding for many more reasons than the sum of its nostalgic parts. Now, where did we put that strychnine? KH

Dirty Projectors

Musical innovator and all-round oddball Dave Longstreth's Dirty Projectors have been dividing opinion in music forums since long before his frankly bizarre reworking of Black Flag's Damaged. Sure enough, his off-kilter sound and apparent fondness for snapping dizzyingly from sweet, laidback melodies to ear-splitting white noise are both fully present and correct in this afternoon's set and, indeed, there is something curiously life-affirming about the energetic abandon with which Longstreth and his band throw themselves into their work. Certainly, it's unlikely that today's performance could ever convert those who remain dubious of his quirky appeal, but it also hints at pretty exciting things to come from his forthcoming albums. Set for release in 2009, they're destined to become a talking point, if nothing else. KH

HEALTH

Perfect timing – to the extent that it often seems to become a control of time – is one of HEALTH’s most striking features. Tonight they arrive on the Vice Stage, metres distant from the Mediterranean, just after half past nine. The sky is sinking into the sea, turning cornflower to navy blue and what I think was ‘Heaven’ came shining as veins burst and lungs feel giddy rushes up from the ribs. I’m wasted, but whatever track it is, this sight - with the future rising up behind me in the shape of an imposing solar panel, the sea and sky merging ahead - and sound is awesome. Perfect perhaps. HEALTH’s debut becomes a heart-in-a-cage jigsaw the band bash feral together, gigantic drummer Beej Miller leading the charge into the horizon that hangs beyond flood barriers which can’t keep the noise from seeping, even if the concrete succeeds in clattering the rhythm back at us. New beats ‘Death+’ and ‘Party Zone’ put a pinnacle in the middle of the set as our jaws grind to an exhilarating halt, a lone pilot plotting a course across a sheet of blue. KK

El Guincho

‘Hometown Glory’. The Catalans have El Guincho, we have this. I’m moving to Barcelona. Turn off Adele and give this a go - inspiring hypnotic gold-lust comes Pablo Diaz-Reixa and the shimmering set that’s shadowed him on his rounds out from Gran Canaria these last few years. On record, the drums of ‘Kalise’ kick up once, but live they kick on and on, sweeping the crowd up into fervour, frenzy and whatever else comes after that. New tracks built on what Pablo describes later as “rhythm machines and my new keyboard” sound like techno-tides of sherbet lapping at your sugar receptors, and the spectacle of one man chanting and banging a drum offers us up to transcendence when boosted by a pair of huge video screens that seem wired to the cosmos. I’m moving to Catalonia. I can’t stress this enough. KK

Atlas Sound

In contrast to the rest of the weather so far, we wake up to a Saturday lacquered in grey. Heads hurt. Everything hurts, too much to sleep. So there’s nothing else for it but to amble over, again, to the wall of steps leading down to the med and the Vice Stage. The first thing that strikes you about Bradford Cox, a.k.a. Atlas Sound, is that he’s probably a genius. A loop-obsessed auteur from a fantastic band, like Noah Lennox – though that’s where similarities come to an end for a while, until Cox unveils a pretty irresistible track that recalls the faded-still-radiant island music of Person Pitch. One of many crowd directed rambles later and we learn that it was co-written with Lennox on a sampler. Watch out. It’s gonna be a hit. Cox proceeds to loop himself to one of the best performances of the weekend and, obviously, pure victory. To pick a better from the three acts I’ve written about is difficult and the whole weekend rests on this upper edge, Primavera Sound is without a doubt the best festival I’ve ever been to and this summer the best of my life for live music. The set ends, pain subsides and for all the aches I feel blessed. KK

Public Enemy

Playing through their seminal album, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Public Enemy take the Rockdelux Stage. Although the impact of the band has undoubtedly diminished with age, Chuck D and Flavor Flav still air punch and scissor kick their way through the set, and generally fight a good fight. Comedy sidekick / revolutionary poet (your choice) Flav is clearly rapping over a backing vocal, or completely miming; either way it doesn’t really matter. Their run-though It Takes A Nation… ends at track ten, and we’re led into a greatest hits encore, ending with ‘Fight The Power’. A colossal victory. TK

Digital Mystikz

From Croydon to Barcelona, Digital Mystikz were never going to be as completely seizing as they are in the dark corners of their own monthly Mass club night. Loefah and Coki do their best to work the crowd, but it’s no surprise to hear the sound system struggle with the low end, creak under the bass weight. Still, as a 2am bounces down DMZ probably can’t be beat. TK

Devo

From the moment Devo march in sync onstage, it’s obvious they’re a band who tick all the boxes. Stage show, yerp. Visuals, yerp. Tunes, yip. No hit amiss, no hit was a miss. TK

Vampire Weekend

Mouths’re numb and all descend on Lacoste poster boys Vampire Weekend’s set – not the obvious pick for opening night early hours revelry. They’re the irredeemable spods, all high-socked and six languages, but as ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’’s Kenyan-cum-Colombia College afro-bleat glides in, all get giddy at its reckless grace(land), flailing arms around before ‘M79’ elegantly slips in like the Ski Sunday theme dressed up for Wes Anderson. The Brooklyn cadets’ finest moments remain those that mimic Ezra Koenig’s former employment as a bit-part player in Dirty Projectors (‘Bryn’, ‘The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance’), but despite their off-putting preppy tendencies, jumping one of the yachts drifting past under the night sky to talk Fitzgerald and fig trees with these young dapper gents never seemed more alluring. SS

Young Marble Giants

With her modest introductions and exclamations, walking in on Young Marble Giants midway through their opener you half expect Alison Stratton to bark back “You’re late! Get out!” from behind her stand as the unsighted creep to a seat goes noticed. She doesn’t (she has, in fact, been earning her bread as a chiropractor whilst YMG have been on hiatus) and instead rifles through Colossal Youth, three decades on from its release, a diminutive figure still sandwiched between the Moxham brothers. A stunning example of punk stunned, their muted model represents a benchmark for truly sophisticated music with ‘Music for Evenings’ the perfect showcase piece. That this blissful set sat just before Genesis P-Orridge bounds onstage with Throbbing Gristle, it is the bashful affair you would expect from an unassuming act with such a brilliant and cryptic pop canon. SS

No Age

From the suburbs of Los Angeles come No Age to the Cataluñan coast. Capturing the same strand of romanticised teen angst Liars picked apart last time round, with Dean Spunt's tyedye tee and cap swivelled back to front and Randy Randall's rockist stance churning out vomit-stricken pop songs, there is a nostalgia-ridden quality that underpins their sound, ringing like a call back to a no-wave heyday. The modest Surfer Rosa hook of 'Teen Creeps' is a magnificent glimpse of the FM stadium tendencies under their tide of dissonant drone. An overlong festival set doesn’t suit their snapshot style, but this awesome slice of noise-pop still rips. SS

Clipse

Scoffing falafel while watching Malice and Pusha T set up shoppe to sell further crack-rap adventures and the forthcoming Clipse record is about as good it all gets. (The album title they announce – saying it’s out this fall – but details are forgotten in the wash.) Worryingly, P. Diddy is due to be putting together tracks for the Virginia pair, about as far from The Neptunes’ astute minimalism as it gets, yet the recent tracks that receive an outing don’t stray too far from former glories. Closing with ‘Mr. Me Too’, it all succeeds save for the dubious beefing up of security around the CD Drome Stage. Still, an awesome performance from an act of honed, relevant, blitzkrieg brutality following on from the belligerent fist Chuck D threw around the evening before. SS

A Place To Bury Strangers

Tonight, what really enables A Place To Bury Strangers to delivering on their promise of “total sonic annihilation” is the frankly astounding density of their sound. A cursory listen to them on record reveals a mechanised rhythm unit that gives the whole a gothic lift; tonight the drums and bass give a terrific power to Oliver Ackerman’s guitar and hazed vocals. In ‘To Fix The Gash In Your Head’, a terrifying flack-flack-flack-ing amidst the coruscating racket sounds like a turbine blade about to break loose and make mincemeat of its mounting; in one moment at the climax, Ackerman suddenly changes guitar, has a fiddle, and the crowd is blasted backwards. They return to the stage for a cover of Sonic Youth’s ‘Death Valley 69’ that, dare one say it, surpasses the original in power and menace. It’s a performance that emphatically declares A Place to Bury Strangers to be far more than the shoelace-count of their influences. LT

Throbbing Gristle

There aren’t many festivals sponsored by fizzy lager who’d dare give Throbbing Gristle space to deliver their degenerate sermons. Credit is due, then, to Primavera for realising how incredible Throbbing Gristle could be in their indoor arts auditorium, the Auditori. In ‘Maggot Death,’ a hulking beast of a beat is released by Genesis P-Orridge and cohorts (standing behind desks dressed with flags) and comes for a heavy-hoofed lumber around the auditorium. Meanwhile, stabs and flicks of sound emerge, like a flock of mendaciously singing birds, from the ceiling of pressed metal, from the walls, from behind you – sound is rendered visible, tangible, tactile. Porridge, in miniskirt and boots, bows the violin to produce a noise that must be a bit like being shot in the face with a phaser by a demented bouncer in a seedy intergalactic strip joint. When P-Orridge sings, it’s with a sinisterly enticing timbre. And so it continues, with the addition of the controversial film After Cease To Exist (made by the TG-affiliated COUM collective), that purports to depict a castration. This is brutal, uncompromising stuff, but also so intelligent, so wracked with the beauty of pure unpleasantness. Throbbing Gristle paved the way for industrial music – unfortunately, industrial music keeps taking itself down dreary cal-de-sacs. To see them like this a revelation; at once terrifying, but also a deeply comforting balm of extreme sound and image. LT

British Sea Power

British Sea Power have managed to pull the bum slot of the festival, up as they (on the Vice/Jagermeister Stage) are against the might of Public Enemy over on the Rockdelux Stage. Nevertheless, this most especial band of Lakeland gentlemen are never ones to let a challenge get in the way of some resolutely hewn and handsome rock music, and tonight, as always, they perform with aplomb. Alright, so it might not be quite as exuberant a set as they are capable of (a lack of thievable greenery around the site perhaps puts paid to that), but this is the assured sound of a band comfortably sallying forth after years of struggling against a nation besotted with Libertines-loving numbskulls. And so the older material raises a glass and sups alongside the new, and when Martin Noble heads into the crowd for a tour of Catalan shoulders, you’re left half-hoping he’ll lead us into the yacht compound behind the stage to head past the mole and across the Med on a never-ending nautical joyride. LT

Animal Collective

The lights. The lights! And so it comes down to this. Two-fifteen am, the last night of Primavera Sound 2008, Animal fucking Collective. One band, four men (Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist), who, for one-and-a-quarter hours, take hold of our collective consciousness by the scruff of its neck and shake our synapses until they bleed tropicalia. Watching the quartet perform Panda Bear track_ 'Comfy In Nautica' _is a highlight of this - or any other - festival, but the whole glorious thing is less a collection of disparate tunes and more one extended, magnificent sensory experience. Surprisingly, perhaps, AC's loop-heavy approach to building melody lends itself perfectly to a live show; where one song ends and another begins isn't always clear but that's the beauty of it. Tonight, like every other night, they're DJs with instruments. And we all know God is a DJ. RW

The Strange Death Of Liberal England

On a bill packed with big big names, it's refreshing to see such a stellar performance from a relatively new - and homegrown - act. Portsmouth quintet The Strange Death of Liberal England (named after a George Dangerfield novel, fact fans) burst onto the scene last year before retreating from the line of fire to work on new material, and on this balmy afternoon it's that new material we hear, interspersed with tracks from 2007 EP_ Forward March!. The exciting thing about TSDOLE as a live force is the intensity of their noise - it's as though ghosts are genuinely being exorcised in the Barcelona sun. Incandescent beneath a mop of ginger hair, frontman Adam Woolway wrestles with his axe and spits incomprehensible, yet somehow strangely captivating, words into his mic. New single 'Angelou'_, a particular highlight, at once recalls the lustre and bluster of Pixies or Arcade Fire, without really sounding like either. RW

Fanfarlo

Somebody, soon, needs to pick up on Fanfarlo and make them rich. This all-too-brief Primavera Sound set is a timely reminder that not only are the sextet still one of the most promising prospects around, they're also sitting on a wonderfully complete cachet of tunes that should be reaching both airwaves and eardrums to a far greater extent than they have already. The sound? It's folk, but not boring; it's pop, but not obvious; it's indie, but not clichéd. Whatever you want to call it, Simon Aurell leads his band through an enchanting set of perfect summertime sing-alongs this afternoon, one that proves, if nothing else, a timely lesson to The Rumble Strips that it's possible to incorporate brass into your music in an understated fashion. Now, if you wouldn't mind, we're dying to hear an album... RW

There’re our highlights from more than three days of great music (including pre- and post-festival shows open to all comers), concise and digestible. Look out for an In Photos special, featuring further acts, in the coming days. Now, to you: if you were at Primavera Sound this year – and if not, why not? – what were your personal highlights? Will you be back again next year? DiS hopes to be, so see you down the front in the evening, and on the beach the afternoon after.