Primavera Sound - Foros

As no one has bothered to put up a thread on this subject I thought I weould and get things started. Overall I thought PS12 was good this year, not as good as some of the previous years but still pretty cool. Here are my highlights/lowlights/suggestions for next year.

THE GOOD - Afghan Whigs were awesome and kicked off the festival properly for me and probably played the best set of the festival. The Cure were great and their three hour set was pretty amazing. Olivia Tremor Control and Nick Garrie both excellent. Shellac their usual great selves. Mudhaoney put in a great set too. Chameleons were good. Atlas Sound were excellent but I worry about Bradford.

THE BAD - Is there a bigger asshole at PS12 than Baxter Dury and his shitty band? What a load of garbage, I hope he never plays there again. Bjorks cancellation meant the San Miguel stage was very short on talent on Saturday too. Oh yeah and my phone was fucked so I never go tmy beers with Alrom!

The Festival - I thought it was really well organised this year so congratualtions to all involve din that - no one could help all the cancellations but the things that could be looked after were - the bars worked really well I thought, the toilets were good pretty much all festival, the security was discrete so that was great too. On the other hand I dont think I have been offered drugs (coke especially) so many times at previous years.

Looking forward to PS13!

Excellent festival this year, the organisers deserve a lot of credit.
Music: afghan whigs, lower dens, shellac, Michael Gira, Nick Garrie, real estate,codeine, mudhoney, milagres,the xx and the men were all excellent.
Agree with you on Baxter Dury, he was shocking
Facilities were great, a lot more toilets especially around the atp stage.
Food was great as well, loved the healthy stuff they were selling at the side of the pitchfork stage.
Only downers were missing m83 and beach house due to clashes

Kleenex Girl Wonder (deserved a bigger audience), Archers of Loaf, Wavves, OFF!, and Mudhoney were all really enjoyable, as were Bleached at the park on Saturday. Black Lips entertaining as always. Really gutted I missed Thee Oh Sees.

Atlas Sound bored me. Real Estate were a bit 'meh' too - would have been better in the afternoon sunshine. Yo La Tengo, I always enjoy apart from when they play 12 minute long distorted guitar solos.

The Mini Stage is absolutely massive and seems just a bit too far away from everywhere else. It seemed as big if not bigger an area than San Miguel which can have crowd bottlenecks such as when The Cure were on.

Foodwise, the pizza slice stand is always great. The pasta stand food tasted of plastic.

GOOD - Shellac, Rapture (surprising), JUSTICE, OTC, MILK MUSIC @ THE PARK (= Highlight) have to put on more stuff in the park again next year...

BAD - Clashes! Hot dogs were poor and the lager was a watered shocker this year, JAGER PRICES.

FESTIVAL - PRIMA NOW A 4 DAY FEST = EXCELLENT!

been back in Glasgow for 3 days and still got the post PS blues

Good
Hot Panda on Adidas stage. So nice to see a band clearly having such a great time. Other band highlights were Archers of Loaf, Obits, Franz, Veronica Falls, Off!, Beach House, Mazzy Star. To be honest I enjoyed just about every band i saw. Atlas Sound bored me after a bit i suppose.

Bad
Missing Wavves which was totally my own fault. Stayed to watch the Cure and if i'd realised they were playing for so long i could've comfortably see both. Also had a few probe with bar staff who simply couldn't count but most of them were fine

Ugly
major hangover on the saturday. Lesson learned for next year i reckon although I've probably said that for the last few years.

Roll on PS 2013!

Highlight: Neon Indian @ Ray Ban
Best Performance: Girls @ Mini
The Magic Moment: Jeff Mangum @ Auditorium (On the Saturday when he called everyone to the stage)
Worst Performance: The Weeknd @ Pitchfork
Most Boring Performance: The Cure @ San Miguel
Best Song: The XX "I'll Take Care Of U" (Jamie xx Remix) @ Mini
Best Day: Saturday
Best Entertainer: Kindness @ Apollo
Best Stage: ATP
Worst Stage: Mini / Pitchfork
Best Drink: Jack Daniel's Coke
Best Food: Mexican
Best Way To Get Back To Town: Underground
Worst Problems: Clashes / Waiting at bars / I'm not a girl but they did seem to have to queue for a long time for the toilet.

To be honest, I was a little worried heading over this year, but in the end had a great time.

There was definitly fewer 'vital' bands for me this year, but that led to finding a lot of stuff I'd perhaps not have seen.

There were some terrible clashes though - Dirty Three vs the Cure being my personal worst, but hey - the Cure played for 3 hours so I got to see a decent bit of the Dirty Three anyway. Also, I thought Baxter Dury was good, but each to his own.

Overall organisation was so much smoother than last year - a few bars opening late having no change in the tills, but pretty much everything else working great. No sound problems to speak of either, and pretty tight scheduling.

The worst thing was probably the Saturday line-up - KoC and Saint Etienne on the main stage were dire, but it looked like some people were having a good time, so good on them.

Oh, and Picore on Vice? God damn - they have to have a later slot with a bigger crowd next year - they were amazing.

GOOD: That the Hot Dogs were poor: The Vegan food was great! I also think that Beirut was great and Sharon Van Etten as well. The cash-system was much better than the portal-thing and the drink-ticket-system from previous years.

BAD: Nothning really... I expected Lower Dens to be a nice suprise but was bored, Sorry to say... But that´s on the margin. It was a good year!

The only edible food I had last year was a slice of quatro queso pizza.

So tell me about Lower Dens. I'm wondering how their music works in a live setting.

I really enjoyed it, despite it being probably the weakest line-up of the 3 I have been to

The Good

Wedding Present were superb at Arc de Triomf, and was impressed with sound at that stage considering it's location.

Archers of Loaf

Afghan Whigs

The Chameleons

Wilco, Spiritualized, Yo La Tengo, Refused and Off! all very enjoyable too.


Cash bars, and being charged a EURO in VIP for a small beer seemed to cut down the queues and wastage.

Overall organisation seemed to run smoother - didn't seem to be anywhere near as many crowd bottlenecks as last year so getting from stage to stage was far easier.

BAD

The line-up in general - seemed the good stuff was more thinly spread this year and the main stage line-up was generally quite weak. I'd prefer if they reduced attendance and got rid of the Mini Stage altogether and got a stronger bill on main stage and Ray Ban.


Cancellations of Melvins and Sleep (not organiser's fault,I know)

Too much bloody talking in the crowd, particularly from the locals - if you want to chat to your mates all the way through the set, don't go near to the front of the stage and ruin it for people who want to listen to the fecking band.

Ew, that sucks. Last year I didn't run into any talkers until Saturday. They RUINED Gang Gang Dance and PJ Harvey.

Jeff Mangum-Oh yeah! I've been on the stage

The Good-

Jeff Mangum on Saturday
The cure
KOC at the Apollo

The bad-
clashes! (missed Wilco, Spirtualized, Kleenex Girl Wonder and too many more)
the cancelations

and one last thing for Really Bad-
Saint Etienne-worst headliner ever