Jarvis, Bird and Aphex: Primavera 2009, Day One

Blog by Nick Mitchell | 29 May 2009
With heads still fuzzy from the previous night's anarchy, we set off for Primavera in the early evening sunshine. Located a couple of miles along the seafront from the tourist trap of Las Ramblas, past a bland commercial district, the festival site is a field of concrete, dominated by a few towering solar panel structures that make it look like some alien city in an old sci-fi film.
 
But when the 40,000 music fans fill the place and the bands start up, it reveals itself to be perfectly designed for its function, with ampitheatre-style seating and raised grassy areas for good views of the stages, and the glinting Mediterranean Sea.
 
Having fuelled up on overpriced noodles (surely a music festival tradition by now), we head towards the ATP stage for Magik Markers. Fronted by a flailing, heavily made-up female singer, the Connecticut trio take half an hour to even demand the audience's attention, but when directionless organ tracks segue into your standard guitar-bass-drums format, they do justify some of the hype.
 
A loose theme of the evening is hammered home with the next band: noise. Lightning Bolt may consist of just a drummer and a bassist, but they batter through their metallic, anti-melodic 'songs' with such relish that Primavera's first moshpit takes over the front of the crowd.
 
Seemingly determined not to be outperformed, ageing grunge rockers The Jesus Lizard then emerge, still embodying the punk spirit in their every move, with balding frontman David Yow spitting, stripping and stagediving his way through a chaotic show.
 
There's barely enough time to say hello to the unmistakable sight of Jarvis Cocker in the audience as we hurry off to the Vice stage for Andrew Bird. Maybe it's the sheer volume generated by the previous two bands, but the solo Chicago troubadour fails to do it for us tonight, even if his whistling, guitar, violin and glock talents are undeniably impressive.
 
Next I arrive late for the most conventional act of the evening so far: French band Phoenix. Again, my mind begins to wander as they grind out successive spirited but plainly derivative indie-pop numbers.
 
After an interval of beer and nachos we walk to the main stage for the hotly anticipated My Bloody Valentine. But I soon decide to leave. Why, you might ask in disbelief? Well, they play another set indoors tomorrow, and even their pummelling racket loses something in the lengthy journey to my far-off ears.
 
So I traipse over to the Pitchfork stage and take a gamble on Baltimore art rock outfit Ponytail. Led by a boyish female in a basketball top, this youthful quartet yelp, pogo and thrash their way through an entertaining but unspectacular show. FYI, there wasn't a ponytail in sight. Where's Francis Rossi when you need him?
 
I make a schoolboy error with the last performance of the night. You don't stand in front of the speaker stack at an Aphex Twin show and expect to get away with your guts intact. Every throb of bass rattles my shell so much that I beat a hasty retreat to a more central location, from where his mindbendingly ambient trickery and arresting visual show can be appreciated more fully.
 
By this point it's after 3am, my legs are giving out and sleep is calling. The first night of Primavera has been a blast, in more ways than one.