Primavera Club 10 - Friday

The best day of Primavera Club this year. The day that we didn't want to end.

EDWYN COLLINS / Casino l'Aliança de Poblenou / 19h

My initial idea was to watch the lead-singer of Orange Juice in his first concert in Bikini, the day before. It was one of the reasons why I got the ticket so I wanted to watch it the earliest but the venue was a bit too far and it would have made us miss 2 concerts.

We decided then to go to Poblenou for the first time. Casino l'Aliança was a beautiful theatre with seats -mm I'd have loved to stand up and dance many times though- that was totally full and saw entering mr. Collins with his band covering Tighten up. With his walking stick he heads to the stool that he got prepared and sits down for the whole concert. Two brain haemorrhages he suffered in 2005 won't let us see him dancing, but we quickly realize his voice and aim remains intact when he starts singing "Losing sleep". Pure magic.

The gig focused on the songs of his last album, but also recovered hits from his career and Orange Juice's, on brilliant performances from Edwyn Collins as well as the band that looked kind of funny: "the mod" on the bass (well and every instrument), "the glam-rocker" and "the southern" on the guitars, "the rocker" on the keys... The outcome was amazing and moving -we saw some tears on the audience- and definitely one of the best lives.

The video is from the day before and yeah, the The Drums' singer is replaced by his son in his lives.

JAILL / Cabaret Berlin / 21h

We arrived few minutes late to this peculiar venue. Yes, cabaret. The decoration, the bar tenders, the lights, curtains...everything looks like a cabaret would look nowadays, and there really happens a cabaret show, as The Rural Alberta Advantage singer confessed and advice us on Sunday.

At first, it was probably the emptiest concert we've atended this year. Jaill was one of this unknown bands for us that we've heard good things about them but hadn't heard any music at all; only few songs on their myspace the same day of the concert. It turned out to be one of the discoveries of the festival.

This nerdy-looking quartet (well the support guitar wasn't there, so it was 3 of them) play summer rock&roll with garage and 90s influences all over. Recommended!

(video from Madrid edition)

TEENAGE FANCLUB/ Apolo / 23.30

We missed Yuck (22.30h). We walked all the way from Cabaret Berlin to Paral·lel and arrived at 23h something, so decided to stay for the other Scottish legends of the night, the Teenage Fanclub. The average age went up and Pop got into scene.

The truth is I've never been part of their fanclub (hehe) so I tried to keep my best for the rest and observe how this forty-somethings put the audience on their knees, celebrating every song. One hour of perfection -you must have seen the guitar tuning up his instrument in every single song- that was for many of the Primaveras (shall we use this expression?) the best performance of the festival.

MALE BONDING / APOLO / 1.15h

Remember Nirvana? We do. We see John Arthur Webb (Male Bonding's singer), the pogo-dancing, the stage-diving started by the singer from Beach Fossils, the crowd-surfing and hearing those chords. Weren't in Sub Pop label too? It's back again. Well, maybe I'm going a bit too far... I recall now a friend of mine saying like 10 years ago that any comparison or reference to Kurt Cobain's band should be punished. Well, you probably had/were one of those.

Maybe it's time that makes something that we would have considered a rip-off, becoming a hommage, an influence... You know, fuck off. We had a lot of fun.

The video is from their concert the day before in La [2], the little brother of Apolo:

WAVVES / Apolo / 2.45h

It was about 2 A.M. when Male Bonding just had finished their concert and these guys came to stage for tuning & setting up their instruments. We first realized the bass was Stephen Pope from Jay Reatard that apparently joined the band about a year ago. Nice.

The starting time didn't change - we've got to say all the concerts on the festival were on time- and Wavves came up on the stage as it was planned. Not the warmest welcome for them, I guess some people still remembered the day Nathan Williams mixed ecstasy, valium and xanax in Primavera Sound 2009.

A couple of minutes setting up voice reverb and messing up with guitar and "To the dregs" starts to sound followed by everyone's favourite "King of the beach". The pogo-dancing is back in Apolo, now even more, us included. The setlist was just a Best of and left behind those filler (& quiet) tracks from the last album in favour of what they know to do best: faster and punker songs. Shouldn't be their last album on the best of 2010? Surely.

We just loved it and so repeated on Saturday.

DJ COCO / Apolo / 4.15h

At the time we were stinking (sweat and beer spilt over the tees), Wavves had left us and we couldn't wait to see what music Coco had prepared for us. I guess it was the influence of Pitchfork that made him start with Kanye West, then Jay-Z - we didn't expect that either and a girl even asked me if that was dj Coco-...to finally be "Ready to start".

And from then a collection of songs from next Primavera Sound bands (Pulp, Flaming Lips..), classics (The Clash, Led Zeppelin, The Smiths, Nirvana, The Stooges...) and also fresh stuff like Les Savy Fav, Edwyn Collins... while we could see a lot of TITS on the visuals.

Less indie than usual, Coco, on a NOFX t-shirt, also played Bad Religion and ska-core covers like "Take on Me" and Save Ferris' "Come on Eileen" that made us get stupidly crazy and feeling like a teenager again.

5.20h, somebody says we've to go... Shit, it was great while it lasted.