Kicking off Europe’s summer festival season, the 12^th edition of Primavera Sound returned to sunny Barcelona last week. Arriving on the Wednesday night I ran over to the iconic Arc de Triumf to join a crowd of 15,000 people to catch my favourite Atlanta garage rockers, The Black Lips. Following their raucous set, the party moved to the Apolo where Kindness, the highly talked about British band played a heavily funkified set that had everyone sweating on the dancefloor.

Thursday night was the official start to the adventures, beginning at the Pitchfork stage to watch Canadian darling Grimes. Claire Boucher, the genius behind Grimes, has reached international status in just a few short years as the princess of haunting, enigmatic electro pop. Although a few technical glitches held her up, she still managed to engage her biggest crowd to date. Next was a quick skip over to the Vice stage to check out Bleached, Los Angeles garage rockers consisting of sisters Jennifer and Jessica Clavin (who I later gushed about my massive girl-crush to) of Mika Miko fame. At 12:30 am I ran to the Ray Ban stage to watch legendary hardcore band Refused and have a quick mosh and elbow to the face, before sprinting back to Pitchfork to catch Danny Brown and A$AP Rocky. Going up in a puff of smoke (ahem) the current golden boys of hip hop did not fail to impress, captivating the audience (okay fine, we were drooling over A$AP’s good looks) and putting on an absolutely amazing show. Fast forward to a quick 4 am rave to The Field, and we called it a night.

Friday night found us squeezing in with what would be the biggest crowd of the festival at the packed main stage for The Cure, still 30 years on and giving a faultless performance. I cut their 3-hour set short after hearing my favourites from their extensive repertoire to steal the last few songs from San Francisco band Girls. After their debut album and a few years of having ‘Lust for Life’ stuck in my head, it was great to see them in such an energized and moving environment. The rest of the night was spent at the Pitchfork stage, although I was lucky enough to catch a few songs from our homegrown instrumental rockers Dirty Three on the walk back from the Mini stage. I arrived at the Pitchfork stage just after the beginning of Sleigh Bells, the strange Brooklyn pair from a hardcore background, who have broken on to the scene with a sound that has been referred to as “industrial terrorism meets electronic pop”. Following them Trash Talk, the Sacramento four-piece that takes the violent riffs and ear splitting shrieks of hardcore to a whole new level. SBTRKT was next, one of the newest leaders of electronic music, to soothe the after effects of Trash Talk and get everyone dancing, a great lead in to the next act, Araab Muzik. Pulling together dubstep, crunk and a phenomenal range of samples, this young producer was an impressive show that was amplified even more by the visuals of his quick technique on the MPC. We danced until the end of his set before hitting the beach for the after party.

Day three of Primavera is when I realized that to survive the festival you should a) try to get to bed before the sun comes up b) not drink too many San Miguel’s and c) wear a fedora. The fedora is an essential part of Primavera (and Barcelona), and if you expect to be treated as an equal, or to not get any weird looks at the fact you have a hatless head, make sure that at least 4/5 of your friends are wearing one.

We started our night off with dream pop duo Beach House, but the massive crowd and slow moving set wasn’t hitting the spot so we checked out Off!, the latest project from Black Flag lead singer and founder of Circle Jerks Keith Morris. Off! was going off, to put it simply and the power-driven set properly kicked the night off. Hanni El Khatib was up next and unfortunately just caught the last few of his songs. Hanni is a bit of a babe and his combination of good looks and bluesy garage rock made for an enjoyable show. The Weeknd, a must-see on the lineup crooned to a massive crowd. Hearing the masses singing along to every word was testament to the popularity of this Canadian who’s songs about sex, drugs and sleepless nights set the music world humming and kicked him into the global spotlight. Washed Out played at 2 am, but we were fading and his chilled out pop didn’t quite compare to the previous high energy of The Weeknd so we skipped the yawn fest to try and catch Jamie XX. Day three and about a dozen beers in, it wouldn’t be fair to say that I could truly attest to the greatness of Jamie XX’s set, however from what I heard, it was great.

Sunday was closing night at The Apolo with another show from The Black Lips and a DJ set which involved toilet paper flying around the room, barf and boys kissing- the usual antics. After four days of partying, you have to push through and enjoy the fifth.

Although I left Barcelona with no voice, at least a kg gained in beer and a permanent hatred of the fedora, the sun, sea and absolutely killer lineup made Primavera Sound one of my top festival experiences in years.

-LAUREN MACHIN