ATH Abroad- Primavera Sound Day One
The first day at any new festival can be a mix of emotions… Especially when you ditch the sprawling and oft visited fields of Zilker Park for the drastic change to metropolitan and sea set Parc del Forúm. Lucky for me, mine were all happy emotions, onset by the changes and not the differences. Read On for a quick recap of Day One.
After arriving to Parc Del Forúm a little bit later than anticipated, I was immediately thrust into the hardest decision of the day: Real Estate or Rodrigo Amarante. The bright late afternoon sunshine told my feet to make the jaunt to the Heineken stage on the far corner of the festival for some glossy and sunny indie pop. I was greeted by a surprisingly large crowd for such a relatively early set from this band, but the second I heard the crisp guitars and those golden vocals, combined with the fresh breeze and the just warm enough sunshine, I knew I had made the right choice.
Next I made the jaunt to the Pitchfork stage for a nice jam session from Pond, who I’d yet to listen to until their live set. The gentlemen provided a heavier collection of rock and roll with a little punk twist and with the sun disappearing behind the dome of the stage it was a nice beginning transition into the nighttime.
Caveman was next up at the Vice stage, where the Brooklyn group began playing to hardly anyone on their small stage and then drew in a large crowd despite playing some new tunes off their record. The lead singer talked up the crowd and won over some new fans for sure.
I caught St.Vincent next at Sony, one of the two largest stages (Heineken being the other) and was bewitched by Annie Clark and company. Between her billowy white gray hair, her robot choreography her fierce voice and fiercer guitar playing, I was completely entranced. Playing a lot of tunes off her most recent past two albums she strutted, posed and shimmy shook her way around the stage and eventually she made her way up to a central elevated platform only to dramatically roll down the side of its ledges one by one. Weird? Yea. Entertaining and pleasurable? Definitely.
And to round out my night, though far from the last act to play, I saw Arcade Fire. After last experience with this band about a month ago in Austin I told myself I wouldn’t see them again, but after realizing that there wasn’t really another option and examining the crowd size that was gathering far before their allotted set time, I decided to give them another chance. I’m glad I did. The crowd was in it from the beginning, loving every opportunity to sing along to all the oohs and ahs from the bands early catalogue and dancing to the new stuff. While I did still got the feeling of disconnect from the use of gimmicky things, its use was minimized and the band, to borrow a phrase from their bro James Murphy, shut up and played the hits. They seemed to feed off the crowd, giving back the energy in their performance and it felt much more like the Arcade Fire I used to know. Buen fin de día número uno.