Primavera Club Festival 2009
This festival, which takes place in two cities simultaneously, and at several spaces at once, proposes several different approaches. It can be enjoyed as a “pick and mix” or as a taster at a single venue. We decided to combine both options, arriving at the following menu:
Those of us who were born in the late 1970s were surprised to discover a concert hall in the darkness of the Retiro Park. This is the setting of the legendary Florida Park, which, on the occasion of this festival, replaced castanets for samplers, and presented the first performance of the show, by Marissa Nadler, who did nothing to relieve the coldness of the night. She was overpowered by the space, and her voice and guitar did not succeed in filling the space. Her monochord folk songs and constant falsetto, on full display in the expanded versions of her songs, made her performance excruciatingly long. The bad taste in the mouth left by this opening was gradually ameliorated by the pop-rock tunes of the Brazilian band Little Joy, a musical project created as a Plan B, but with nothing new, by Rodrigo Amarante, from Los Hermanos, and Fabricio Moretti, from The Strokes. Their performance included their outstanding version of Procissão, a theme written by Gilberto Gil in 1967, which resembled the electronic reinterpretation of the Brazilian band Os Mutantes. The night ended with Devendra Banhart, a true master of ceremonies, whose fluent Spanish warmed him to the audience, who allowed themselves to be seduced by a repertoire based on Santana-like psychetropicalist effusiveness, and the hypnotic tension created by riffs reminiscent of Led Zeppelin. In short, a huge banquet.
The second day of the festival began with the New York band Cymbals Eat Guitar, who presented their debut album and began their performance with the sumptuous And the Hazy Sea, although this choice backfired slightly, as with this song they soon used up all the tension demanded by a live performance. Their set was slightly disorganised, with excessive and meaningless guitar solos, which depleted the songs’ power in the rhythmic sections, unlike the group A Place to Bury Strangers, who excelled at managing their noise power, which was amplified by the sense of claustrophobia created by the warm lights, which resembled an aurora borealis. It was the perfect combination for a powerful, atmospheric and vibrant post-punk concert.
By the third day, we were flagging, so we decided to attend some “slow food” concerts, with Cass McCombs and the highly awaited Sr. Chinarro. While the former offered nothing more than a decaffeinated New Romantic pop concert, the latter were lacking flavour. They offered a repertoire defined by rhythmic linearity, which even the cello and the caustic and cynical lyricism of Sr. were unable to alleviate. The evening dragged on, until it was the turn of the DJ David Holmes, a true artist when it comes to selecting songs but an absolute disaster when it comes to mixing them on the decks.
The weekend line-up began with Tara Jane O’Neill, who inaugurated a repertoire of hostilities and made us long for the fabulous Thalia Zedek, from the very popular Come. Given her lack of musical dynamism, it all became quite repetitive, with very few variations in the vocal texture and slight rhythmic fluctuation between the sense of calm and the gearing down of the guitar, with the usual loops made possible by today’s technology, giving rise to a concert which, although intense, was not quite vibrant. What O’Neill lacked was abundantly on show at the performance by The Black Heart Procession, a compact band with a full and taciturn sound. Their secret: many years onstage, a deep and dry voice, minor chords and a sombre lyricism, which, even including their worst record Six, fortunately did not detract from their live performance. Next up was the second-generation shoegazing by the School of Seven Bells, a pleasant surprise drenched in intense and powerful dream pop. Worth mentioning is Pájaro Sunrise, whose emotional alternative country featured violins, accordions and xylophones.
Lastly, we come to the most outstanding performance in the Madrid line up of this festival. We are referring to Kid Congo, whose show exceeded the expectations of the festival’s organisers, with a large crowd flocking to hear this bombastic and entertaining performance. Kid Congo had the audience in their pocket from the minute they played some songs from their album to be released in 2010, although the highest point of the night was their powerful blues punk homage to Poison Ivy, by The Cramps, which sent us home with our ears full of the best rock’n’roll.
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