Primavera Sound Los Angeles

Primavera Sound is a Barcelona-based music festival known for its musical diversity. Last weekend, the festival came to Los Angeles for the first time, taking over the city’s State Historic Park. 

Photographs by Alec Basse

The festival kicked off on Friday, September 16th, and I arrived just in time to catch Clairo’s set on the big stage. Cool and composed, she attracted a crowd that was especially impressive for a mid-afternoon act. The adoration of her fans was clear; anything she said was met with a huge cheer, which made her laugh, which then brought another big cheer. Clairo’s set stayed true to her dreamy-pop roots, while also managing a fuller and funkier sound through tracks off her newest album, such as “Amoeba”.

My next four hours were packed with incredible variety of music. I drank iced tea while watching Mustafa’s heavy street poetry before walking over to Giveon’s set, which was as loud and joyous as Mustafa was quiet and dark. Giveon’s live music involved more instrumentation and theatrics which juxtaposed the stripped back R&B that I was expecting. His track, “Like I Want You” featured an unexpected minute of guitar-hero shredding that could have come straight from an 80’s hair metal band. 

Next, I caught Current Joys, and their set was excellent. Frontman Nick Rattigan’s angst-drenched vocals were complemented by a band that was totally locked in. Their live performance gave their recorded songs a new feeling of fullness coupled with the simple and DIY aesthetic of their earlier work. Halfway through their set, during a particularly manic performance of “New Flesh”, Rattigan hit the ground hard in a convulsive fit, convincingly “dying” after singing about, well, dying. After a full minute of stillness, with his band transitioning impressively from amused to worried, he got up and sang about afterlife as the crowd cheered. 

Lorde and Darkside closed out the night. Lorde attracted a predictably massive crowd. The strength of connection between Lorde and the crowd was palpable as she jumped athletically across the stage, extolling the wonders of summer and young love. 

Darkside, a smaller metal-electronic-indie duo, were about as much of a contrast as possible. They weaved electronic droning, screeching and buzzing with loud guitar riffs, over warbled, inaudible vocals. I was transfixed until my eardrums said it was time to go. 

I arrived at the State Historic Park on day two to catch Machine Girl’s Matt Stephenson crowd surfing. I watched as he fell to the ground and, instead of returning to the stage, started walking around the crowd, trailed by a mob of teenage fans. Machine Girl’s music is heavy on screaming whilst glitchy and intensely electronic;I had expected something ridiculous during their set, but I was still impressed by Stephenson’s theatrics. I then caught Georgia, a British pop artist with a kind of energetic positivity that reminded me of early Lorde. Her cover of “Running Up That Hill” was a near-perfect impression of Kate Bush. 

I then caught Kim Gordon’s set; she was a founding member of Sonic Youth whose new material is heavily reminiscent of them. Sonic Youth defined the sound of the 1980s and 90s underground scene, and her set was imbued with that sense of nostalgic coolness. She was followed by Fontaines D.C, a rock band with a growing fanbase. Their sound, look, and unabashed Irish-ness are an updated callback to the great post-punk bands from across the pond of the 80s and 90s. Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails closed out the night with a loud, gothic set. Nine Inch Nails somehow eloquently fuse emo, industrial, and pop music and their set did not let their present, passionate fan base down.

Fontaines D.C. photographed by Alec Basse

Tiredness set in on day three, but the fantastic lineup kept me there till the very end. I began the day with Faye Webster’s set, and she looked like she was genuinely having fun - maybe even the most comfortable-looking performer that I saw on the big stage. Her smooth music infused country and indie music; it was the perfect way to start the afternoon.

I then caught girl in red, who was equally conversational. Her set included a rambling bit about the problems with plastic lawns as well as a plea asking her mainly Gen-Z audience to stop looking at their phones and to start moshing. The songs were certainly mosh-worthy, and “bad idea!” had the crowd going. 

I had expected Arca to be wild, and I was not disappointed. The small, low stage gave their set the kind of close energy that I had previously felt when Current Joys played it themselves on Friday. There must have been something in the air surrounding that stage, because Arca, like Rattigan, also had a moment of sudden death before her screeching beats revived her. The beats, her persona, and the broadly empowering nature of it all led it to being the most hyped crowd of the weekend. 

James Blake and Arctic Monkeys closed out the night to a mixed reception. I’m quite fond of Arctic Monkeys’ most recent album, Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino, but the sound is, indeed, a deviation from their pure-garage-band-revival root. The crowd pretty clearly expected, or hoped for, the early stuff. They did play some classics such as “505” and the later “Do I Wanna Know?”, the hits that defined my middle and early high school years. Though, as they went deeper into their set, and the songs got newer, there was a medium-sized exodus from their stage that flocked towards James Blake, a movement that frontman Alex Turner wryly noted. 

Arctic Monkeys photographed by Alec Basse

Eventually I joined this moving crowd. Blake’s set was a significant change of pace, and a quiet, introspective, iPhone flashlight-waving vibe hung in the air. Unfortunately, we were now a stone's throw from the Smirnoff Ice stage, where a literal non-stop rave was occurring. The beats may have interfered with Blake’s sonic palette, but he soldiered on and managed to close out the night with a fantastic performance. 

The hallmark of this festival was diversity, in every sense of the word. The Los Angeles edition of Primavera Sound brought together music of all kinds, and the same could also be said about the festival’s attendees. For open-minded music fans, this is the perfect festival to attend. Every genre and act-type  was present, accounted for, and had a chance to shine.