If he Spring needed a performance that would unleash the party without reservations and on a grand scale, and that would invite the public to forget about the crowds and queues, this one arrived this Friday with Mr. beck hansen, who pulled out of his sleeve the most overwhelming and funky ‘show’ that could be imagined. Special bolo also for him. “The first of my first tour since 2019, and with a new band & rdquor ;, the Californian made it known, that this Monday he will try to condense the energetic display in a club, Razzmatazz, within the Primavera Ciutat program.
His latest album, ‘hyper space’released just before the pandemic, featured relaxed tones and a certain futuristic helplessness, but, for this tour, Beck has opted to offer something more physical and celebratory. Does well. It was clear from the overwhelming start with ‘Mixed bizness’, memory of the album ‘Midnite vultures’ (1999), that he linked with ‘Devil’s haircut’, by ‘Odelay’ (1996), with his cowboy harmonica touch.
funkadelic spree
The script leans towards the ‘greatest hits’, and a ‘funkadelic’ Beck, receptive to rock guitar, wearing dark glasses, moving between eighties disco neon lights. Non-stop feast, with the songs chained together: pieces from his modern work, such as ‘Dreams’ and the one he recorded with Gorillaz, ‘The valley of the pagans’, and material from those boom times, such as ‘Nicotine & gravy’ or ‘ Hotwax’, is with its chorus in Spanish: “I am a broken record / I have gum in my brain & rdquor;. There were quiet spots, like that version, acoustic guitar in hand, of ‘Everybody’s got to learn sometime’, a hit by The Korgis in 1980, and the ‘Loser’ rescuea groovy vestige of the grunge era, with its tragicomic nihilism (“I’m a loser, baby, why don’t you kill me?”) now turned into a gag for the general song.
Heading for ‘To the sea!’
It was Beck’s victorious comeback after 22 years of absence in Barcelonadominating a space, the marine platform, which previously accommodated the fluid passage of Fontaines D.C., with his technique and furious post-punk digestion, at the service of the flamboyant ‘Skinty fia’ and safe cards like ‘Boys in the better land’. It also happened there Manuel, a group already a veteran of Primavera, combining the electronic and narrative shadows of ‘Formigues’ or ‘Jo competeixo’ with the Machiavellian ‘Per la bona gent’ and the rescues of ‘Al mar!’ and ‘Benvolgut’.
The swell of the public was constant, and security employees directed flows and closed steps here and there to prevent collapses (or trying to). Two concerts that took place on the same stage, the Binance, those of Weyes Blood and Amaia, reflected the coexistence of two audience bubbles: the international, which dominated the Californian’s concert, and the native, very dominant in the Basque’s. Both recitals with slender pop contours and a certain ascendancy as a singer from another time.
Echoes of Laurel Canyon
Presence of neoclassical airs, that of Natalie Merling (real name of Weyes Blood), with its heritage of soft-rock tradition familiar with Laurel Canyon, open to subtle twists and bold solutions, and bearer of evocative melodic lines. She wears a white dress and airs of a ‘Hollywood’ actress, although her repertoire does not stop at glitter and aspires to transcendence. She says she aspires to compose a song as timeless and magical as ‘Stardust’, by Hoagy Carmichael, and the songs on her latest album, ‘Titanic rising’ (2019), are on an advanced track.
There was ‘A lot’s gonna change’, a refined piece about the changes in adult life and the longing for childhood, that nice number about modern love called ‘Everyday’ and the majestic ‘Andromeda’, wearing his warm and clear voice. He incorporated ‘The air that I breath’, an old milestone by The Hollies, into his world before closing by throwing flowers at the audience in the dreamy ‘Movies’.
Candorous ‘lightning’
As to Amaia, a creature pampered by Primavera since before her first album, defended that pop with electronic fabrics, although defended by a band, which fuels his recent and beautiful ‘When I don’t know who I am’, produced by Alizzz. From ‘Welcome to the show’ to the single ‘Dilo without speaking’, and from there to the piano in his little classic ‘El relámpago’, which he intoned with his neat and boyish calligraphy.
There is still in the character that trace of innocence and informality in his way of presenting himself to the public. “I am very happy because this is the concert in which more people I know come to see me & rdquor ;, he made it known. “I have not prepared much for what I am going to say, but well, I am improvising & rdquor ;. And so, with that candorand closely followed by a competent band, came close to jotero folklore in ‘Yamaguchi’ and ‘La cancion que no Quiero singarte’, invoking distant loves.
The machine and the voice
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And another heavyweight of the day, Low, the Auditori Rockdelux overflowed, like Kim Gordon on Thursday, causing tremendous queues. Here is a band with almost 30 years of history that lives in a certain state of grace in the wake of his latest cycle of albums. From the most recent of them, ‘Hey what’ (best international album of 2022 according to this newspaper), the main stream of songs came out, carriers of that extreme touch of the darkest mechanical texture and the purity of the vocal harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker.
A musical language that those from Duluth transferred with all their power to the stage, highlighting silences, disruptions and spiritual highs. They also applied it to past songs, such as a serious ‘No comprehend’, rising above the seas of distortion, and the mystical ‘Sunflower’, with celestial voices, in a poetic cast of a certain funerary tone. Serene and adventurous liturgy, at the opposite pole to the idea of festival relaxation. But Primavera is also this.