Where do I start? I’ve been covering Primavera Sound for half a year, but this year’s final day was the most transcendent, and despite recency bias, it was the best 12 hours I’ve ever experienced at any festival. It was great to see bands like Little Sims and Big Thief take to the main stage. There, Jamie XX returned with his bandmates, making XX’s first appearance at Forum Parc since their 2009 debut. That was the same year that My Bloody Valentine stopped in Barcelona during their reunion tour. Both of these bands continued to captivate audiences with varying levels of intensity, while The Sims, Kneecaps, Knock Troopers, and Nina Jirachi all opened pits of varying sizes.
And those are exactly what I did did I managed to see it on Saturday June 6th, an experience that personally made up for the chaotic first day of the festival. The organizers seemed determined to make it important. Primavera always has a wide-ranging bill that allows music fans of all kinds to organize their schedules in a variety of ways, but the day seemed to be more or less split between two festivals running simultaneously, at least until midnight. While you could camp out on the main stage to see some of the world’s biggest alternative acts, the other side of the Forum hosted popular pop acts from Grace Ives to soon-to-be-opening star Occident-winning Olivia Rodrigo. He took the stage a few hours before being announced as a surprise guest. debuted New song with Robert Smith of The Cure. Here are five highlights from the final day of Primavera Sound 2026.
Grace Ives is invincible
The first indication that Saturday’s rumored surprise guest would be Olivia Rodrigo had to be the fact that Grace Ives, who would open for her on her Hullbelled tour, was scheduled for earlier in the day. Unraveling (cough cough) on the Cupra stage just after 6pm, the sun was still beating down on me at this year’s festival, and Ives had to keep wiping the sweat from his face between songs. The heat amplified the frenetic intensity of songs like “Fire 2” on her new album shecame alive with a three-piece setup that included a drummer (who was sufficiently awed by the audience to take photos mid-song) and a synth maestro. The opening one-two punch of “Avalanche” and “Dance With Me” was infectious, and “My Mans” essentially morphed into an Ives-keyed power ballad. When she wasn’t singing, she preferred playful grimaces to hand gestures to punctuate lyrics, jumping around the stage, at one point causing her yellow sunglasses to crash to the ground. When she ended her set with “Stupid Bitches,” which could possibly be the song of the year, you truly believed that nothing could hurt her, or you, right now.
Master thief turns forum into giant living room
“We’re all just in a giant living room, right?” Adrianne Lenker told the large crowd who had just been singing along to “Vampire Empire,” with Buck Meek pointing out that the song was recorded here in Catalonia. The weather was as crisp as the sound quality of the live mix, and even standing in the back there was hardly any shaking. But more important was the indescribable energy that this quartet, which had brightened smaller bands in the past, brought to the main stage, which can only be explained by recalling the way Lenker paused to make an upward gesture while singing “Like the sky” during “Change,” the show’s most subdued and emotional moment. It went by in a blink of an eye.
Bassist Joshua Crumbley looked like he’d been with the band for a decade rather than a year (he joined after Max Olearchyk left, and the fact that James Krivchenia’s drums had a Free Palestine sticker next to the band’s name scribbled couldn’t have been a better point). “Not” has a melodic arpeggio, and the whole band sings in unison. Lenker’s guitar solos were not just plentiful, they branched out along different paths. “Simulation Swarm” has a swarming solo, “Christmas Day” embraces waves of distortion, and “Vampire Empire” slides violently up and down the fretboard. I can only describe “Simulation Swarm” as swarming. Opening with “Forgive the Dream”, it was shocking in its dreaminess compared to recently debuted songs. acoustic live versionthe set also included unreleased songs, including “Mr.” ‘Man’ and ‘Beautiful World’. But whether you’re hearing it for the first time or have listened to it many times, Big Thief made the songs feel infinitely more familiar.
Shoegaze lovers unite for My Bloody Valentine
As soon as My Bloody Valentine came on stage, I immediately put on earplugs. I was expecting the loudest show I’ve ever attended. The band is famous for its combination of reticence and deafening heaviness, especially live, and the choppy sound of Slowdive’s set the previous day seemed like a sign of foreshadowing. Even though I was quite close to the Estrella Dam stage after the crowd left to catch Olivia Rodrigo, I was immediately struck by how clearly they blended and streamlined their sound, prompting one of the nearby fans to exclaim, “Louder!” After the opening “I Only Said”. They seemed to heed his request, as they played “When You Sleep” with a full band, and for nearly an hour and a half, Kevin Shields and company oscillated between blistering fuzz and a brain-melting shoegaze trip. loveless‘Only Shallow’ and ‘Soon’ unsurprisingly drew the biggest response, the latter accompanied by a simple disco ball visual, giving way to a hypnotic 3D tunnel on ‘Wonder 2’, at which point transcendence was no longer dependent on matter. Shields spoke only once, but his microphone was still enveloped in effects, rendering his words indecipherable until he conjured up an earth-shaking wall of noise at the end of the show. Earplugs were absolutely necessary for what felt like a short eternity.
xx’s unquiet dedication
As soon as the first notes of ‘Crystallized’ captivated the Revolut stage, a flood of xx love rang out – love for each other, the audience and the music itself. Early in their flawless set, they returned to songs from their self-titled debut (released just a year before the group’s first festival appearance) like well-worn sweaters, beaming with gratitude for their first show together in eight years. In the conversation between songs, they put it simply and seriously, with Romy mentioning that he was outside with his fans when it rained on Thursday. Behind the decks, Jamie xx started subtly raving about a song around “Fiction.” At that moment, a giant “X” platform descended on them, and shards of purple light were emitted, as if to represent them being trapped in a shell. It spun and flashed upwards as Romy sang, “Can I turn on the lights and make it better?” During the 2017 live remix of “Shelter,” there was no more poignant and intimate moment than “VCR.” This song sent shivers down my spine. The giant screen showed a close-up of Romy staring at Oliver Sim as she sang, and you could almost feel the stiffness in her throat gulping down. Then he respectfully sings “Love, love, love” into the microphone.
How can time pass so quickly for a band that values slowness? how they became superstars in front Each in their own way throws themselves into the “suffering of dance.” song Didn’t The Cure play during their 29-song set (which Romy said was fun)? You won’t find the answer in any of the interviews, but you could feel them moving seamlessly through their upbeat solo songs, embracing the evolution of their music without alienating each other or pushing any member aside. The group’s elation continued from “Loud Places” to “On Hold.” After rewinding to “I Dare You,” there was nowhere to go but back to the beginning.
I have never been to Ninajirachi. london Spain
The Port Stage is one of the smallest stages in Parc del Forum, but over the weekend it was packed with fans of Water From Your Eyes, Lambrini Girls and more. As I made my way down to the water’s edge from Kneecap’s show at Occident and enjoyed a few minutes of Nick Leung’s set on the Schwarzkopf stage, there was already a huge crowd waiting for Ninajirachi. Ninajirachi has been heavily promoted since organizers placed him in the penultimate row of the original Primavera Sound 2026 poster. There’s a good reason for that (hype, not placement): Australian producer’s debut album i love computers It will probably be remembered as one of the best of the decade, and she hands down the best electronic set I’ve found this year. (Indeed, I was absent from the 12-hour program organized by Skrillex for Sony at the adjoining Cupra Pulse and featuring the likes of Arca and Four Tet.) She may or may not have dropped “London Song” as an opener to allude to the fact that she’s never been to Spain — “It was the best crowd I’ve ever had,” she said.
To no one’s surprise, she closed with her most popular song, “Fuck My Computer,” but she had no problem captivating the crowd before she even got to the venue, delivering great club takes of “Berghain” and “Berghain.” bratcreating the most sophisticated version of “rock music” and throwing it under her own “girl EDM” banner. Ridiculously, I was brought back to the memory of Adrianne Lenker singing, “Don’t worry, let me dance in front of you.” This is a section of the song whose title is “Incomprehensible.” There are no more appropriate words.
Source: Our Culture – ourculturemag.com
