Primavera Sound 2015: Highlights from May 30th

The third and final part of our coverage of Barcelona's Primavera Sound 2015 festival - check out below all our favorite performances from the last full day of the festival which took place at Parc del Fòrum on May 30th, including The Strokes, tUnE-yArDs, DIIV and many more:

tUnE-yArDs 

I knew as soon as I read the festival's timetable that I had some tough choices to make, especially on Saturday. The Strokes were the headliners of the day at Primavera stage and given that I had never seen them live before, I had to fit at least part of their set in my schedule. At the same time, a quarter to midnight, at the ATP stage on the opposite side of Parc del Fòrum, Babes In Toyland, one of my favorite '90s bands, were making their Spanish comeback after two decades, while tUnE-yArDs, one of my current faves, would be on the Pitchfork stage at half-past midnight.

To cut a long story short, I started with The Strokes, missed completely Babes In Toyland's set (and had to make do with watching it on YouTube later) but, thankfully, I got to see the majority of a magnificent performance by tUnE-yArDs which turned out to be amongst the best of the festival. Merrill Garbus has created a truly unique, utterly euphoric sound and is doing a great job in recreating it live by mixing electronic sounds with a variety of percussive instruments, Nate Brenner's bass guitar, her trademark ukulele and, of course, her astonishing vocals given an extra boost from her back-up singers. Respect!

Tune-Yards, live @ Primavera Sound, May 30th, 2015

DIIV

It's been quite some time since "Oshin", the very promising debut by DIIV, but judging by their excellent, highly energetic performance on Primavera's Pitchfork stage, the band from New York is about to make a dynamic comeback. Their set included several new tracks from their upcoming sophomore album (confusingly titled "Is The Is Are"), which managed to excite the crowd despite the fact that for most of us this was the very first time we were listening to them, and, of course, some of "Oshin"s highlights, including the track everybody wanted to hear live, the great "Doused":

DIIV - Doused (live @ Primavera Sound, May 30th, 2015)

The Strokes

They walked on Primavera stage fashionably late (maybe they were waiting for the end of the Spanish football cup final?), they kicked off with "Machu Picchu" followed by "Someday", an indication they would split their set between their new songs (that, let's face it, is not what we came here to listen) and their classic hits, and proceeded without much between song banter to give an efficient performance that would get their numerous fans singing every time they decided to revisit their past glories. I was glad I was able to see them even at this late stage of their illustrious career, even in the overcrowded conditions of a big festival, but after half an hour I knew I had to make my way to one of the other stages.

Here's "All The Time", the track they were playing as I was rushing to see tUnE-yArDs:

The Strokes - All The Time (live @ Primavera Sound, May 30th, 2015)

Shellac

I will not say much about Shellac's late night performance in one of the smaller stages of the festival except state the fact that the approximately half an hour that I've witnessed was absolutely terrific. We'll have more about them soon, as a few days later we had the pleasure of attending their sold out show at An Club in Athens (the kick off event of Plisskën Festival). Also, it seems that Steve Albini watched Sleaford Mods earlier in the day on the same stage (we didn't, but made up for it next week in Plisskën) and was sufficiently impressed to declare them the best band in history during his band's set. 

HEALTH

HEALTH had gone MIA for quite some time now, but they are about to make their comeback with new album "Death Magic" very soon and, based on their impressive performance on the Pitchfork stage, you can expect an explosive mix of industrial dance beats and gothic, noisy guitars. Sounds promising - here's their cover of Pictureplane's "Goth Star":

HEALTH - Goth Star (live @ Primavera Sound, May 30th, 2015)

Hookworms

It was really late when Hookworms took to the stage (nearly 3 in the morning) but their powerful set helped us to somehow muster up the strength to stay on our feet for another 40 minutes. Great energy from a band that has the potential to produce truly exciting rock music in the years ahead.

Other notable performances we got to experience on Primavera Sound's third full day included Einstürzende Neubauten's unique, industrial experimentation, Kevin Morby's charming folk-rock, Foxygen's burlesque theatrics (not sure about the music, but their stage show was certainly something else), Younghusband's melodic pop and Fucked Up's ambitious (and entertaining) hardcore.

Einstürzende Neubauten

Kevin Morby

Foxygen

Younghusband

Fucked Up

Earlier in the day, before we make our way to Parc del Fòrum, we had the opportunity to see once again in action the wonderful Ex  Hex at Parc De La Ciutadella - a great way to start your day, without a doubt:

Ex  Hex, live @ Parc De La Ciutadella

To close our Primavera Sound 2015 saga, let's hear some more live music from the festival:

Ex Hex - New Kid (live @ Parc De La Ciutadella, May 30th, 2015)

Kevin Morby - All of My Life (live @ Primavera Sound, May 30th, 2015)

Fucked Up - I Hate Summer (live @ Primavera Sound, May 30th, 2015)

Check out here Part 1 and Part 2 of our Primavera Sound 2015 coverage.

Coming up, all the action from Plisskën Festival...

Primavera Sound 2015: Highlights from May 29th

Part 2 of our highlight reel from Barcelona's Primavera Sound 2015 festival - check out photos and videos from the performances we've enjoyed the most on the second full day of the festival which took place at Parc del Fòrum on May 29th, plus a couple of new bands from Australia we saw at MACBA, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona.

Sleater-Kinney

It's been nearly 16 years since the last time I saw Sleater-Kinney live, firstly on the main stage of Reading Festival in 1999, playing a great set early in the afternoon, and then again a few days later at London ULU as part of the celebrations for Matador Records 10th birthday. 

In the time that passed since these two unforgettable performances, the band released three more excellent records after that year's "The Hot Rock" (my Album of the Year for 1999), went on a ten-year hiatus during which we've had many exciting projects, musical or otherwise, from all three of them, and reemerged triumphantly this year with "No Cities To Love", an album that proves the magic is still here and their special chemistry still works wonders.

Without a doubt, Sleater-Kinney's hour-long set at Primavera's Heineken stage was amongst the festival's top performances, combining highlights from their new album with some of the finest tracks they've given us over the past two decades. Their set went as far back as 1997 for "Dig Me Out"'s dynamite title track and "Words and Guitar", while all their '00s work was well represented with 2006's "The Woods" taking the lion's share. The only minus point for me of an otherwise faultless set was the complete omission of the numerous gems to be found on "The Hot Rock" (I think "Get Up" would have been perfect for the finale). I guess you can't have it all in just one hour, but we did have all of the following:

Sleater-Kinney's complete set list: Price Tag, Jumpers, Bury Our Friends, Oh!, Surface Envy, Ironclad, What's Mine Is Yours, No Cities to Love, Fangless, Rollercoaster, A New Wave, One Beat, All Hands on the Bad One, The Fox, Words and Guitar, Sympathy, Dig Me Out, Entertain, Modern Girl.

Sleater‐Kinney - No Cities to Love (live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015)

Sleater‐Kinney - Dig Me Out / Entertain (live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015)

The Julie Ruin

You can say that the second day of Primavera Sound was dominated by ex-riot grrrls who are now riot women and prove in action that 40 is the new 20. Kathleen Hanna was in excellent form throughout the 45-minute set of her new band The Julie Ruin, hopefully an indication that her health problems are now behind her, and along with her band mates, including former Bikini Kill partner in crime Kathi Wilcox, delivered a scorcher of a set, full of positive energy.

Check out below "Oh Come On", one of the best songs in a set list that included the following: V.G.I., Lookout, Party City, South Coast Plaza, Kids in NY, Radical or Pro-parental, Ha Ha Ha, Goodnight Goodbye, Oh Come On, Run Fast.

The Julie Ruin - Oh Come On (live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015)

Disappears

It's certainly one of the marks of a good festival: you walk in with certain expectations, but sometimes the great moments come when you least expect them. Like at five o'clock in the afternoon, in the sparsely attended Ray-Ban stage, when Chicago's Disappears deliver an intense set under the hot sun. I imagine if they were on later at night, this could easily have been one of the festival's most talked about performances. Even so, they rightfully earn a place in our highlight reel of the day and convince me that I need to do some digging in their discography which so far includes five albums, with their latest release being this year's "Irreal" LP.

Disappears, live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015

Ride

The recently reunited shoegaze heroes have been steadily upping their game since their return to the live stage and it's easy to see they are now firing on all cylinders. The start of their set with "Leave Them All Behind" and early single "Like a Daydream" was truly impressive and they continued well with "Nowhere" tracks "Polar Bear" and "Seagull", but given the difficulty in approaching the overcrowded main stage to get a closer look and the fact that almost simultaneously both Run The Jewels and Death From Above 1979 were also playing, after a while I had to make my excuses and move on to other pursuits. Here's "Like a Daydream", undoubtedly one of the highlights of the day:

Ride - Like a Daydream (live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015)

The New Pornographers

If you're at a festival and The New Pornographers are playing, you should definitely find some time for them. Even with some of their key players missing (both Neko Case and Dan Bejar were not present), Carl Newman's team is a sure bet for some memorable, upbeat rock with strong melodies that's good for any time of the day or night. One of the best performances we caught at the ATP stage where also Run The Jewels, Belle and Sebastian and The KVB played.

The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic (live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015)

Death From Above 1979

The second day of the festival finished for us around 2 in the morning, after a blistering performance by Canadian noise makers Death From Above 1979 at the crowded Ray-Ban stage. We walked back to the hotel under the sounds of Jon Hopkins whose set was just beginning at the ATP stage, but after 9 hours of running up and down Parc del Fòrum there just wasn't any more fuel left in the tank for us.

Check out below some more photos from Primavera's second day featuring Belle & Sebastian, Julian Casablancas + The Voidz and The KVB.

Belle & Sebastian

Julian Casablancas + The Voidz

The KVB

Earlier in the day, as part of the events of PrimaveraPro (the meeting for professionals from the music sector), we enjoyed a showcase of new bands from Australia outside of MACBA. Here's a couple of them, Klo, an electronic pop duo from Melbourne, following in the footsteps of acts like Purity Ring, and Holy Holy who play electric folk-rock that brought to my mind Band Of Horses.

Klo, live @ MACBA

Holy Holy, live @ MACBA

Check out here our impressions from the first day of the festival. Part 3 is coming soon...

Primavera Sound 2015: Highlights from May 28th

At the end of May, Barcelona's Primavera Sound festival celebrated its 15th anniversary with another stellar line-up and plenty of memorable performances. Cool Music Central was there for the third time, our first visit since 2010, and what follows is our personal highlight reel from three days full of music at Parc del Fòrum.

Here are the bands that stood out for us on the first full day of the festival, on May 28th, presented not in order of appearance but on our subjective level of enjoyment:

Giant Sand

 

Howe Gelb's band, nowadays an international mix of musicians from Tuscon, Arizona, and various (mostly northern) European countries, took to the Ray-Ban stage late in the afternoon and, as the sun was setting, delivered an awesome set of dusty, country-tinged, folk rock comprising mostly of tracks taken from Giant Sand's latest album "Heartbreak Pass". 

For the mind-blowing finale though, Gelb took us 30 years back with a roaring take on "Tumble and Tear", one of the best tracks on Giant Sand's very first album, the great "Valley Of Rain" from 1985, when a lot of his current band mates were not even born yet!

 Giant Sand - Tumble and Tear (live @ Primavera Sound, May 28th, 2015)

Hiss Golden Messenger

You can say we were in the mood for Americana sounds on Thursday, as another performance we particularly enjoyed was that of Hiss Golden Messenger, also on the Ray-Ban stage. The North Carolina quartet delivered a spirited set in the hot, early afternoon sun that included several of our favorite tracks off last year's album "Lateness Of Dancers". They closed their 40-minute performance with "Southern Grammar" which you can watch below:

Hiss Golden Messenger - Southern Grammar (live @ Primavera Sound, May 28th, 2015)

The Replacements

I had never had the chance before to see The Replacements live, one of the greatest bands to come out of the '80s US punk scene, and thankfully I caught what it turned out to be their second to last performance of their reunion, as a few days later Paul Westerberg announced from the stage in the Porto edition of Primavera Sound that this was the group's final live performance. So, even from a distance from the stage (not a very punk-rock thing, but it turns out you need to buy VIP tickets to have a chance to get close to the festival's main stage), we got to enjoy some of the many all-time classics of The Replacements, including this one:

The Replacements - I Will Dare (live @ Primavera Sound, May 28th, 2015)

The Black Keys

The duo from Akron, Ohio, has enjoyed wide success in the last few years which led them to the top of the bill on Primavera's main stage. Quite a large crowd gathered near midnight to listen to an almost 90-minute set from The Black Keys, mixing songs from their latest work "Turn Blue" with several tracks from their older albums. The biggest cheer of the night, and quite a bit of dancing as you'd expect, came when they played their two "El Camino" hits, "Lonely Boy" and "Gold On The Ceiling" which you can watch below:

The Black Keys - Gold On The Ceiling (live @ Primavera Sound, May 28th, 2015)

There's been of course many other entertaining performances on the day, some of them we couldn't catch due to scheduling conflicts (or due to exhaustion - the festival stages are even more widely spread now that the site has expanded), some others we've had to watch briefly to make time for something else. Below you can see photos from the performances of The Thurston Moore Band, Spiritualized, Cheatahs and Twerps from Australia as well as a video of them performing "Back To You" from their latest album "Range Anxiety":

The Thurston Moore Band

Spiritualized

Cheatahs

Twerps

Twerps - Back To You (live @ Primavera Sound, May 28th, 2015)

Around 1:30 in the morning, after almost 8 hours of live music, we had to crawl back to our hotel room to the droning sounds of Sunn O))) to gather our strength for Day Two of the festival. Stay tuned for part 2 of our Primavera Sound 2015 coverage...

C.M.C.'s Guide to Primavera Sound 2015

Parc del Fòrum map

The summer festival season is finally upon us and here in Cool Music Central we're getting ready for an epic 10-day music marathon! The start will be in Barcelona on May 28th with Primavera Sound 2015 and the finish in Athens on June 5th and 6th with the most ambitious edition of Plisskën Festival to date.

We'll have more on Plisskën in a couple of weeks time, but now it's time to focus on Primavera Sound and make plans and tough decisions about what to see and do in Barcelona's Parc del Fòrum between May 28th and 30th:

Day 1

The Black Keys

The Black Keys are the headliners on the Primavera stage around midnight, but our day will start much earlier with the afternoon performances of Hiss Golden Messenger (Ray Ban stage), Twerps (Pitchfork) and Cheatahs (Adidas Originals). Later on Giant Sand are playing against Viet Cong, which brings us to the first tough decision of this festival. Thankfully the latter are expected in Athens for their own show early in September, so Howe Gelb's band will be the most obvious choice for me.

The next tough call of the first day will come around 9 o'clock with The Thurston Moore Band versus The Replacements face-off, but having seen the former in Athens very recently is going to give me an easy way out for this dilemma.

Mikal Cronin (who is also playing Plisskën), Spiritualized (long time no see) and Tyler, The Creator are some of the available choices until it's time for The Black Keys, while for the small hours of the morning there is James Blake and JUNGLE on hand to make things funky.

Day 2

Ride

For the start of the second day of the festival we have Disappears on the Ray Ban stage while The Pastels will be playing on the small Heineken Hidden Stage, a performance that requires acquisition of reservation tickets. 

The ATP stage is having a very solid line-up on Friday, starting with the early afternoon performance of The KVB which is followed by The New Pornographers, Belle & Sebastian and Run The Jewels, while on the Primavera stage we have Julian Casablancas+The Voidz, Damien Rice and Ride as the headliners.

We'll make sure, of course, not to miss the sets by The Julie Ruin and Sleater-Kinney on Ray Ban and Heineken stages respectively, who I'm willing to bet will be amongst the highlights of Primavera Sound 2015, while amongst all this madness Patti Smith & Band will be performing the classic "Horses" in its entirety. A lot of tough choices here and I'm not quite sure who will prevail.

Sleater-Kinney

For the after hours part of Day 2 we have to choose among Death From Above 1979, alt-J, The Juan MacLean, Earth and Jon Hopkins.

Day 3

The Strokes

The last day of Primavera Sound 2015 starts with Kevin Morby on Pitchfork stage with opposition from the promising Younghusband (ATP). DIIV, American Football, Torres, MOURN, tUnE-yArDs and HEALTH form a strong line-up on Pitchfork stage which will certainly lead us to pay it several visits throughout the day. Elsewhere, we have performances by The Vaselines, Fucked Up and Mac DeMarco, while the Sleaford Mods versus Foxygen derby will be decided for me by the fact that the punk-hop Mods will also be part of Plisskën's line-up.

Just before The Strokes headlining performance at Primavera stage, there is fellow New York scene comrades Interpol playing at Heineken stage, while psychedelic Kiwis Unknown Mortal Orchestra will be appearing at the same time on Adidas Originals stage. However the most unfortunate clash for me comes from the fact that Babes In Toyland will be starting their set on ATP stage at exactly the same time as The Strokes, so I think I'll have to make do with my memories from the Babes live set at London's Forum twenty-something years ago.

For the finale of the festival, one can either dance the night away with Underworld and Caribou or catch the guitar blasts of Shellac, Thee Oh Sees and Hookworms. I think you know where we'll be.

The Strokes - Reading 2011 (Full Set)

See you on the other side with, hopefully, plenty of photos, videos and live reviews from all the action in Barcelona!