What the hell is going on? #6: Primavera Sound Week
By: Thomas Hannan
ALRIGHT!!!
Team Rockfeedback has just returned back from filming, as we threatened to last week, forty one (forty one!) bands at the weekend’s marvellous End of the Road festival. We were woken up daily by the sound of screeching macaws, kept tripping over peacocks, and consumed more Addlestone’s Cloudy Dry Cider than I realised existed in the world (I should point out that we’re in no way sponsored by Addlestone’s cider, but we would really, really like to be – get in touch!). In amidst all that and generally gawping at the breathtaking scenery of Dorset’s Larmer Tree Gardens, we shot some of the finest bands Rockfeedback’s cameras have ever been pointed in the direction of, inclusive of an entire, breathtaking set from Fleet Foxes, Wildbirds and Peacedrums confirming to us that they’re one of the finest bands active today and Bob Log III demanding of every lady in the audience – “put your boob in my scotch”. We met many men with beards, a few women with beards, and an 89 year old gentleman who’d slept with over a hundred women and served time for murder. Footage of the lot will be with you shortly.
Quite different but far from inferior to that idyllic experience was our time spent at the 2009 Primavera Sound Festival in the Catalan paradise of Barcelona earlier this year. As the footage is coming together so nicely, we thought we’d dedicate a stretch of time to it, by showcasing a different pack of footage shot at the festival every day of this week. We start today (Monday) with Sonic Youth’s headline set, in which they try to out-do their buddy Neil Young – an old touring partner who played directly before them – and just about succeed. We chat money, longevity and fame with Steve Shelley and Lee Ranaldo (pictured above), and set wise get treated to everything from ‘Sacred Trickster’ to ‘Hey Joni’. Lightning Bolt are our stars for Tuesday, with a piece documenting the first time the Providence, Rhode Island duo have ever played on a stage of all places. Fear not, the slight step towards conventionality doesn’t dwell their sonic assault one iota. Wednesday is Jay Reatard’s turn to unleash some flying-v shaped rock our way, before Yo La Tengo wig out in the most brilliant of manners across the Barcelona seaside on Thursday, and Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox gives us a tour of his swanky hotel suite come Friday’s close.
Elsewhere, we’ve a competition for tickets to a great you-pick-the-setlist show from the Young Knives as part of our gorgeous sister label Transgressive Records’ fifth anniversary gigs (if she weren’t our sister, we most definitely would), goodie bags and tickets to give away for the Birthday JD Set gig taking place with Brett Anderson, Jon McClure and Carl Barat, and you can expect words on a fine debut LP from The Destroyers, a rundown of the events of A Fistful of Fandango’s festivities last week, and to be brought the low down on a gig we’re particularly excited about – Sunset Rubdown’s performance at the Relentless Garage in London tomorrow night. We wonder if they’ll drop the indie-prog and adhere to the venue’s policy of playing nothing but relentless garage all night...
In other news, this genuinely is the new Weezer album cover.
God...
Tom.x