Our second day will be headlined by Lana Del Rey and The National, add more rays of sunshine and a sexy first act and you have an already beautiful Primavera Sound Day 2!
The Last Dinner Party open our second day of Primavera and do it with lots of suave and a great stage presence. Singer Abigail knows how to play her audience and conquer the stage, the band plays a tight set but the highlight of The Last Dinner Party live is still just hit single ‘Nothing Matters’, a lot of their other songs lack energy and the power they clearly get from their audience’s enthusiasm. I then head to Dogstar, without many expectations as I hadn’t done my research. Arriving at the stage I notice a familiar face with a bass in his hands, I now know what Keanu Reeves gets up to in his spare time. The band play a tight set of rock tracks, and if comfort rock would be a genre, that’s what they’d be; a comfort rock band. A wide vocal range from their singer and softly thumping drum rolls make for a great collection of songs. The band will continue on a European tour throughout June.
The Amazon Music stage is dominated by Yo La Tengo, who bring worldly rock sounds to Barcelona’s docks. Their drummer, an older lady drumming like she’s in her mid twenties, makes me want to grow old just like her. We continue with the instrumental and experimental world sounds of BADBADNOTGOOD and they might be one of my favourite discoveries of this festival. Sadly clearly not a favourite is depressing pop singer Lana Del Rey, although a massive crowd had come out to see her play, there wasn’t much joy in seeing her on the stage. Low energy and some clear personal issues reared their heads, however her background singers truly impressed.
For the main event I moved a stage across. The National’s Matt Berninger is the classiest and most theatrical crooner I have ever witnessed, and it’s a shame that this was my first time, it was a mesmerising affair. The band performed two hours of incredibly intricate shoegaze tracks, driven by the immaculate voice of Berninger who was having a fabulous time. The artist in him truly came out, crawling the stage, playing with his adoring fans, and at some point losing his glasses in the process. We heard ‘I Need My Girl’, ‘Smoke Detector’ and we’re enchanted by the band’s performance. Two hours of The National and it still just wasn’t enough.
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