A figure like rosaliawhich breaks the categories and is a great attraction in itself, can destabilize the internal balance of any festival, but, although this Saturday at the Fòrum there was a large audience that came to see only her, the road to her more than nocturnal screening (unfamiliar time, 2 in the morning) it was not exactly a succession of opening acts: there were pop divas of the caliber of st vincent and the rampant caroline polachek, figures with weight in any festival poster. TO annie-clarkAn Oklahoma native raised in Texas, St. Vincent is preceded by the most distinguished credentials, including a one-on-one album with david byrne that projected the legacy of Talking Heads into the future. It came with a deliberately ‘retro’ flavored record, ‘Daddy’s home‘, although he knew how to combine those songs that carry reflections of the silky funk of the 70s (‘Down’ or the titular piece, with its wah-wah guitar) and the most celebrated numbers from previous albums, beginning with the robotic cadence of ‘ Digital witness’, and following by the rugged rock touch of ‘Birth in reverse’.
Bowie in memory
He approached the front rows to shake hands in that love ode called ‘New York’ (with David Bowie in the subtext, although he never met him). And he dominated the situation using a songbook that debated freely between the ‘groovy’ ramblings of ‘Los Ageless’, around the clichés about Los Angeles, the catatonic rock of ‘Cheerleader’ and the punch of other songs from his first albums, like ‘Year of the tiger’ or ‘Your lips are read’. Yeah his could be described as art-rockin balance between sensuality and intellect, that of The War On Drugs pulls towards a passionate management of the ‘singer-songwriter’ canon, with echoes of Bob Dylan and The Waterboys, slyly tuned with cold layers of synth. A bold dialogue that did not detract from a repertoire with heart, where the piece that gives the title to the last album, ‘I don’t live here anymore’, stood out, with a keyboard introduction that would make Kim Carnes from ‘Bette Davis happy. eyes’. Adam Granduciel pointed out midtempos with floating tension, like ‘Pain’ and ‘Strangest things’, with that trace of cosmic helplessness.
inspiring fairy
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Another main dish, also American Caroline Polachek, confirmed expectations with the suggestive staging of his second solo album, ‘Desire, I want to turn into you’, one of those pop works that creates a universe in which to get lost, although those songs do not speak of astral entelequias, but of a drive as earthly as desire. A singer with high registers, she opened the ‘set’ with a slender howl that she fused with the harmonic spirals of ‘Welcome to my island’, a harbinger of her vulnerable pop and with a magical aura. An enveloping staging, with intense reddish tones, and songs that glide delicate melodic tracks and intimate resonances with traces of folk, although, when appropriate, they materialize into functional pop artefacts touched by glitter: from ‘Sunset’ to ‘So hot you’re hurting my feelings’. Polachek greeted the audience, assuring that Primavera is his “favorite music festival”. She already performed at the Fòrum in 2022, although everything, or almost, has changed for her since then.
walking legend
And on a secluded stage, that of the Forum Auditorium, John Cale proved that it is possible to be venerable walking legend and at the same time give signal in the creativity scanner. Her recent ‘Mercy’, somewhat spectral and compassionate towards humanity, centered the repertoire with songs like ‘Moonstruck (Nico’s song)’, dedicated to her lost friend, Nicosinger of the first version of The Velvet Underground, as well as ‘Not the end of the world’ and ‘Night crawling’. Parapeted at the keyboard, surrounded by a trio of guitar, bass and drums, he treated those songs somewhat more earthly than on the album, less dreamlike, with his corpulent voice in good shape, and recovered an old piece that he adapted in his day Bauhaus, the rarefied ‘Rosegarden funeral of stores’. Turning to the guitar, he evoked old ‘velvetian’ corrosions with ‘Cable hogue’, although the most canonical Cale, the one on the piano, excelled in the repetitive notes of ‘I’m waiting for my man’, evoking colleague Lou Reed and heroin trafficking on the streets of Manhattan, and in one of his hyper-expressive ‘covers’, ‘Heartbreak hotel’, rereading Elvis viscously. Legendary powder to put the final day of this 21st Primavera Sound on track.