Primavera Sound 2017 in brief, day 2

As promised, here's the second round of our quick chronicles of how it was Primavera Sound 2017 for us. After the first post devoted to Thursday 1st of June, here comes Friday 2nd, a day that seemed the weakest in paper, but still had several noteworthy moments to enjoy and highlight. Let the good times roll!

The Good

Lawrence Arabia: Charming pop music at the Hidden Stage courtesy of James Milne (what an amicable frontman) and his locally assembled band (Hi-jauh to the rescue!), putting out an impeccable, gentle and immediately lovable show to start the afternoon with a big smile.

Lawrence Arabia, Christchurch-Barcelona pop connection. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

Mitski: Among the best album debuts of last year, Mitski Miyawaki stark, minimalist staging approach might make you think on a cold performer on a first impression. What a mistake that is. She lets the music do the talking, with the fury coming from the bursting guitars, the visceral screams and the blows of her melodic vocal turns. And soon you realize she is going to be in the same league of St. Vincent or Angel Olsen. She is untamable.

Mitski, static wonder. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

The Make-up: You might find the band very unsurprising, too classic in their attempt to recreate that "vintage" funk-soul-rock spirit. But NO ONE can't deny the power, joy and good vibes a night with Ian Svenonius can provide to any willing to listen & watch. Summoning the spirits of James Brown and Iggy Pop, giving everything he has and beyond to engage the audience, the wild frontman and his well-oiled band are a guarantee of fun (and a threat to that hipster self-absorption).

The Make-up, rock'n'roll suicide. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

The Bad

Queing for Auditori: There has to be a better way to organize this sort of massives events at Auditori. I mean, you waste a lot of time just queueing to buy the mandatory extra-tickets in advance... and then you spend another lifetime queueing again to enter the gig. The result? You have missed the four first tunes of the show. Frustrating.
Eating at Primavera: Rephrasing a famous Woody Allen quote "The food in this place is terrible. Yes, and it's so expensive one would expect not even the Brits will pay for it". Enough said...

The Queen
The Magnetic Fields: Another "first time" and a mandatory gig was seeing Stephen Merritt live presenting his new concept album '50 songs memoir'. Splitted in two shows (Friday and Saturday), of 25 songs each, The Magnetic Fields proposal was a serious threat to every PS17 line-up planning... but a lovely experience to be seen and heard. Cute and intimate stage setup (very nice visuals) a seven-piece band enveloping every single tune with grace and elegance. An entertaining story-biography (more engaging the first day, imo the songs were more diverse and less languid) to be told with that deadpan, offbeat sense of humour that is one of Merritt's trademark. But another of his "signatures", by far the more important one (and just in case you didn't know it), is that the man can write POP TUNES. At Primavera Sound we were lucky to hear a great bunch of them.

Special guests at Stephen Merritt's home. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

Brief of the third and final "big day" of the PS17, Saturday 3rd, arriving very soon!