Primavera Sound 2014 line-up – Rocksucker’s picks

Published on January 30th, 2014 | Jonny Abrams

The announcement of the Primavera Sound 2014 line-up was received with great interest by this writer, who was blown away by the previous year’s festival and had already been enticed to this one solely on the strength of lone-confirmations-’til-now Pixies, Neutral Milk Hotel and Arcade Fire.

Take a bow, Primavera Sound organisers, for you have truly outdone yourselves yet again. Impatient old Rocksucker had to start planning a first-draft schedule, later to be ravaged by clashes and/or logistics no doubt…but then that’s the beauty of Primavera Sound: you could make a great festival out of the acts you miss, or would have missed but ending up seeing instead of something you’d had pencilled in.

In football terminology, it’s got strength in depth.

Read about how brilliant last year’s Primavera Sound was:

Now join us as we pick apart the Primavera Sound 2014 line-up…

Primavera Sound 2014 Thursday line-up

Arcade Fire, Queens of the Stone Age, Neutral Milk Hotel and Disclosure is quite the array of headliners, is it not?

Seeing Neutral Milk Hotel has to take absolute priority, having seen all the others and because even if that wasn’t the case they’d still be first choice anyway.

When the headline stakes are that high, you’ve just got to follow your heart. In truth, the others would be good too: each had a fine album out last year and are known to ‘cut it’ live, whatever it is that they’re cutting.

Scratch beneath the surface and there remains a significant degree of “whoa” about the Thursday line-up: St. Vincent, Metronomy, Pond…

…and then things start to get even wowier: Moderat, Julian Cope, Sun Ra Arkestra, Charles Bradley…

And that’s without factoring in listening to and appraising all the other acts on the schedule.

Primavera Sound 2014 Friday line-up

Pixes. Pixies. Definitely Pixies.

And Slowdive. And Dr. John. And John Grant. And Slint. And Jagwar Ma. And Factory Floor. And Lee Ranaldo and the Dust. And Julia Holter. And The Twilight Sad. And !!!. And SBTRKT.

Mick Harvey performs Serge Gainsbourg? That’s more than likely got to be worth seeing too. And Deafheaven, they’re meant to be good, aren’t they? (Has listen) What the hell is that? Sounds like indie death metal.

We daresay Deafheaven would be worth seeing too, if just for the absolute novelty.

That’s a resounding two thumbs up for the Friday line-up, then.

Primavera Sound 2014 Saturday line-up

Nine Inch Nails and Kendrick Lamar better not be clashing. It would be great to see either, both just unreal (except, hopefully, real). And Tropicália legend Caetano Veloso, back of the net!

Saturday’s line-up goes from strength to strength with Mogwai, Television performing Marquee Moon and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Again, their parity on the poster billing suggests there might be at least one clash amongst that lot, but imagine if there wasn’t.

It keeps going: Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, The Dismemberment Plan, Earl Sweatshirt, Connan Mockasin, Cloud Nothings, Ty Segall, Black Lips…it really is a powerhouse of a line-up.

Just bring it on, already!

For information and tickets, visit the official Primavera Sound website.

About the Author

Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.