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After finishing up at work on Wednesday (very sad to say goodbye to all my HF friends, thanks for the Shameless DVD guys, you know me so well!), it was an early morning flight Thursday to Barcelona to start the last of my European travels before making my way to Vancouver.
Totally loved Barcelona. Sadly I was at my festival all weekend and neglected the major tourist sites but from what I saw I’m definitely eager to come back one day.
There is some awesome architecture in Barcelona but the only real tourist sights I got to see were Gaudi’s impressive Sagrada Familia cathedral, Barcelona’s Arc del Triomf and the lovely marina area. Kel - I also had lunch at Maoz (is that still going back home ?).
The Primavera festival started the day I arrived so I had little time to explore the city upon arrival and instead made my way straight to the festival (walking in the glorious sun along the beach) for an awesome night of bands finishing up at around 4am (they like to do things late in the Mediterranean).
Whilst waiting for my favourite band, Explosions in the Sky, to come on
stage (yes that makes it four times I’ve seen them this year), I heard a group mention Benny Cousins - weird to meet some Perthites over here but then the festival is full with travellers from all over the place (sorry Maria, I had to tell them I was a Weagle, couldn’t be bothered getting into an Eagles v Dockers conversation!).
Other cool bands I caught were Public Enemy, Japanese crazy guys (and gal) Boris, afro infused New York rock act Vampire Weekend, the awesome Health and Aussie’s Midnight Juggernauts (playing at 3.30am and I just couldn’t get into them).
Slept in as late as I could the next day and again made my way straight to the festival. It was a little cloudy and even sprinkled a little but by mid afternoon the rain had gone and it was sun sun sun.
One of the best things about the Primavera festival is its location relatively close to the city centre and the setting - a concert and exhibition area literally on the beach. The views of the stages back dropped with the ocean were pretty spectacular.
Some great bands tonight, Portishead were amazing (in a
concert hall no less, kinda cool to have this luxury at a festival), Devo were way better than they should have been (yes they still wear those plastic red hats!) and the rudely named F***Buttons and Holy F*** both put in mental sets.
Holy F***’s set closed the night (at 5.30am!!) and they invited the crowd up on stage with them. I’ve been to gigs where this has happened (including Portishead earlier that night) but have never had the chance or the guts to do this but thought bugger it tonight and scaled the barrier and jumped up on stage to party the last song away. Damn it was sooooooo much fun to be up on stage, now I know what it must be like to be a rock star : -)
As I made my way home the sun started to rise and the birds they were a chirping - seriously I am too old for this!
The third night of the festival ended even later, never mind the sun rising, people were heading to work by the time I got back to my hostel!
The night saw some great performances from favourites like Okkervil
River, Animal Collective and Rufus Wainwright (the more famous of the Wainwright siblings having seen sister Martha the previous week) as well as old timers Dinosaur Jnr who are still going strong and more obscure bands like Fanfarlo, Menomena, Dirty Projectors, Deer Hunter.
The night ended with full on dance sets from Madchester legends 808 State, Apparat Band, Simian Mobile Disco and a self enforced lock in from Tiefshwarz due to the downpour of rain that came at around 5am and basically was Barcelona telling us the festival was over but we still had partying to do (and the shelter kept us dancing until the rain eased).
The next day the festival continued with a free outdoor concert (with a few local bands and two great Swedish acts Torpedo and Irene). Got some great pics in the day time setting and it was nice to see couples with kids playing and dancing along to the tunes.
Not wanting my weekend to end, I attended the closing party which featured a few bands and a DJ set by DrownedinSound, a music website that has much to blame for my musical obsession. Needless to say it was an awesome
night that ended at 3am with me dancing like crazy on stage.
With my mid morning flight to Paris I didn’t get any time to check out any more of Barcelona so the touristy stuff will have to wait until next time.
Promise the next post from Paris won’t be so music focussed! That said, I do have concerts planned for two of my three nights in Paris …
Pete
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Maria
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Shame on you!!!
The way we're going, I'm tempted to say I'm a Weavil too but it could never be that bad!