Round-Up: Primavera Sound 2013, Saturday
Published on May 27th, 2013 | Jonny Abrams and Nick Cole-Hamilton
Before we begin, Rocksucker would like to extend our apologies to the following acts on the Saturday bill of Primavera Sound 2013: Adam Green & Binki Shapiro, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Apparat, Dexys, Thee Oh Sees, Camera Obscura, Meat Puppets, Dan Deacon, Crystal Castles, The Suicide of Western Culture. We’d like to have seen you all perform, but there’s simply too much ace stuff going on at this most judiciously curated of festivals to catch it all.
Study that lineup: not a Mumford in sight. Take note, Glastonbury.
Hello Saturday at @primavera_sound ! Late for Mount Eerie unfortunately but it’s a beautiful day and they sound great #primaverasound2013
— Rocksucker (@rocksucker) May 25, 2013
We were still feeling the burn from the previous two days’ worth of wall-to-wall headline-worthy acts – hey, read our round-up of Thursday and our round-up of Friday, why not? – when we rocked up some twenty minutes late for Mount Eerie’s 18:20 set at the ATP stage.
Our tiredness was in danger of being exacerbated by the sleepy sounds we arrived at, but Phil Elverum and co. summoned their death-metal-ier side to send us, re-energised, on our way for a wee wander around in the glorious sunshine, the forecast of rain inviting anxious glances at the dark clouds on the horizon. Though it would get colder, we were fortunate enough to avoid a soaking.
Gong, a slow gunge of feedback, ethereal vocals, pummelling itself into a state of musical arousal #MountEerie #primaverasound2013
— Rocksucker (@rocksucker) May 25, 2013
That’s *a* gong, not the Franco-British progressive/psychedelic rock band formed by Australian musician Daevid Allen.
Clear blue sky overhead, menacing clouds of doom on horizon. Will rain strike? #primaverasound2013 #fingerscrossed twitter.com/rocksucker/sta…
— Rocksucker (@rocksucker) May 25, 2013
Next up, at 19:40 and also on the ATP stage: jazzy, psych-y, jangly Chicago wonders The Sea and Cake.
On next, at the ATP stage, #TheSeaAndCake – you might say we’re about to be Prekoppupied #hereallweek #primaverasound2013 #iloveseaandcake
— Rocksucker (@rocksucker) May 25, 2013
Of course, that ‘joke’ is contingent on knowing that the front man of The Sea and Cake is named Sam Prekop. We’d had a beer or two by this point, mind, hence the slightly odd tweeting…
La mer y La Torta #theseaandcake #thehareandthetortoise #primaverasound2013
— Rocksucker (@rocksucker) May 25, 2013
Er, you see, La Mer y La Torta is Spanish for The Sea and Cake, which blew our slightly sozzled and sun-addled mind on account of its sounding a bit like The Hare and The Tortoise, and The Sea and Cake’s bassist being Douglas McCombs of Tortoise. We’ve since learned that you might well be more likely to hear a Spaniard refer to un pastel or una tarta, but shut up.
The Sea and Cake was a strange experience: they were note-perfect, energetic and tight as anything, but they looked deeply displeased about something. It’s easy to play the body language expert once you’ve projected your own notions onto a situation – heck, maybe they were just tired – so we’ll refrain from any further unfounded speculation.
This was pretty much the extent of the stage banter…
It’s great to be here. There’s the, uh, Ferris wheel…(pause – begin tune) #theseaandcake #primaverasound2013
— Rocksucker (@rocksucker) May 25, 2013
Lack of smiles aside, their set went down a treat, not least the numbers from their gleaming Runner LP of last year. Then, this…
They’re showing the #ChampionsLeague final and there’s an hour til #WuTang ! #bestfestivalever #primaverasound2013 twitter.com/rocksucker/sta…
— Rocksucker (@rocksucker) May 25, 2013
That says all it needs to, unlike this…
#primmer #fairer #primavera #beer
— Rocksucker (@rocksucker) May 25, 2013
Hmm.
It was starting to get a bit nippy so we went off in search of the warmth attendant with live music and a crowd of people, stumbling upon the Middle Eastern neoclassicism of Dead Can Dance on the Ray-Ban stage…
#deadcandance are rather good #toocoldtositandwatchfootball #primaverasound2013
— Rocksucker (@rocksucker) May 25, 2013
…and then…then…
#wutangclan #enterthedragon #diversifyourbonds #dontworrybillmurray #primaverasound2013 #wtc #wutang
— Rocksucker (@rocksucker) May 25, 2013
Wu-Tang Clan are that rare kind of supergroup: one that’s been a supergroup from the very beginning. If Ghostface Killah, RZA, GZA, Raekwon, Method Man and co. had just stood there in silence, it would still have been a must see, so it’s frankly a bonus that these titans of hip-hop are still capable of whipping up a frenzy.
Dropping in “Come Together” felt a bit ‘Jay-Z at Glastonbury’ but that barely even constitutes a gripe. They should be at every festival for the rest of time, because everyone needs to jump up and down shouting “bring da muthafuckin’ ruckus” once in a while.
Onto Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at the Heineken stage, where yer man had happily left the children’s choir behind and was prowling the front of the stage in his inimitable, impossibly commanding fashion. At this point, we’ll cut to Rocksucker’s resident Cave-ologist Nick Cole-Hamilton for a few thoughts on the set…
Nice to hear old tunes like ‘The Mercy Seat’ and ‘Jack the Ripper’…strange to end on ‘Push the Sky Away’ as it’s such a subdued track…felt a bit tired, like they weren’t giving 100%…but, being a fan of the old material, it was nice to get a good solid whack of classic Bad Seeds, albeit kind of sad because their lineup’s changed so much.
Thank you, Nick. Handy that he’s sat next to us as we’re writing this.
Yes, sometimes we like to use the royal we.
There was time enough before My Bloody Valentine’s arrival to nip to the Pitchfork stage for Liars, whose WIXIW album of last year was amongst the finest. “Trust me, they’ll be worth it” yours truly insisted, only to be let down with an oddly flat-sounding round of fairly standard electro-clash. Sound issues? Fatigue? Whatever it was, we’d left before they had the chance to win us over with the brilliantly barmy shuffle of “A Ring on Every Finger”, or the kind of laterally conceived sludge-rock avalanches that appeared on their previous LP Sisterworld. Sorry, Liars.
So, time for the makeshift tissue earplugs…
#mbv #omg #lol #primaverasound2013
— Rocksucker (@rocksucker) May 25, 2013
My Bloody Valentine played old songs, which were fantastic, and some songs off their new album, also fantastic. In fact, they get better each time we hear them, not least the astonishing liftoff undertaken by “Only Tomorrow” when Bilinda Butcher sends her still-beguiling voice soaring up towards the cosmos. Having seen them at Hammersmith Apollo in March, this was the second time this writer had been exposed to their ten-minute noise flare-up known as “the holocaust section”, and as such the second time we’d enjoyed the spectacle of folk fleeing the area with their hands over their ears.
By this point, we were so knackered that we barely remember anything of Hot Chip. Suffice it to say, we didn’t make it to The Suicide of Western Culture on the Vice stage at 04:30, but we’d recommend you check them out if you happen to be a fan of enraptured synths and clickety clackety beats.
Thus concludes our three-part essay for teacher entitled What We Did in Barcelona. See you there next year? We’ll be the ones tweeting something vaguely incoherent on the outskirts of a mosh pit.
Primavera Sound 2013, you’ve been a revelation.
For more photos from Saturday at Primavera Sound 2013, check out this gallery from Rocksucker’s resident photographer Lucas Sinclair.
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