Primavera 2011

So three of us Scene Not Herdsters partied it up a few weeks ago at Primavera 2011. We literally had the best time and are now definately suffering a gigantic bout of the post festival blues. We just wanted to share with you our highlights, as we had such epic fun; so from me (Sophie) and Alwin, here are our top three best bits from the Festival.



Soph's picks

There is literally so much to choose from it’s hard to know where to begin. It was Jarvis Cocker singing 'Common People' was immense, PJ Harvey was freakin' awesome and I loved Alaina Moore from Tennis' fantastic curly hair and cute voice! Mine and Alwin's hella camp dancing during Deerhunter was also hilarious and majorly rocked the cazbah and I also have to mention how great the hot dogs were! I'm seriously still craving them one week on. But my top moment I think has to be the entire Interpol set. They literally played the whole of Antics, bar a couple of songs, and they killed it! 'Evil' has to be my fave song (apparently that's an odd choice - but anyway they rocked), have a listen:

My second highlight is Tune Yards' set. I've never seen her play before - I guess sometimes life gets in the way! But her live show is phenomenal and her get up was completely rad!

Thirdly, I have to give a nod to the super cool Cloud Nothings' set. Duncan posted a video of ‘Understand At All’ on my facebook page about a month ago and I can’t seem to stop listening to them. They're just so upbeat, uncomplicated and just, well, fun! So it's pretty apt that they should feature!

Alwin's Picks

Being my first Primavera I was unusually excited about attending a festival. The layout and number of stages were great, although seasoned Primavera attendees mentioned the site was too big. Barring the day 1 card fiasco, Primavera was a great festival. In fairness, it is pretty much like any festival, the major pulling point was the amazing lineup. Never quite seen a lineup this good, which of course had it's many highlights.


I saw Interpol a few years back at Alexandra Palace - probably the worst show I'd ever been too. They were quiet, seemed unenthusiastic and were generally rather boring. What a difference a good PA and an intense showing from Daniel Kessler makes. And thank fuck the bass was turned to 11, because no matter who they replace Carlos D with, it is hard to shy away from his brilliant song writing skills on the bass. So the highlight of my Primavera goes to the following (it's not the actual performance, the actual available videos were pretty shite)-
  


So it's 3am on Friday night and half of us are pretty much asleep on our feet. Cue mind blowing technical wizardry from Battles. Disappointingly and somewhat understandably they played almost nothing from their superb debut, and stuck to pummeling us with their virtuoso jams/new material. Nonetheless, their musicianship was indeed something to marvel at, and at times hurt my brain as I simply couldn't keep up. Guest vocals, albeit via computer screens, from Kazu Makino and Gary Numan helped fill the void left by Tyondai Braxton, and they played at what seemed like a 200 mph which ensured we all kept awake on our our toes. They played this, I like it very much -

 
So, this brings me to my third highlight. And as much as I love festivals for the big singalongs and the obvious drunkedness, it's always nice to uncover something new. Pere Ubu were my favourite discovery, pipping Sunns awfully close to the post. Bring on 2012...