Ethel Cain reigns after the storm at Primavera Sound

BarcelonaAfter the storm comes the calm, they say, but also laments, anger, criticism, understanding, and resignation, often all at once. After the rain and wind wiped out a large part of Thursday's headliners at Primavera Sound, on Friday there was a great desire to enjoy a good day of concerts and to discuss the situation that left Massive Attack, Doja Cat, and Bad Gyal out of the festival. The warmth of the sun on a breezy afternoon was also celebrated as a victory, and doubts were shared about how the refunds for Thursday's tickets would be handled. The festival management announced that on Monday the "refund operation will be detailed", which will only be made to people who bought a ticket for Thursday – which cost 150 euros – and not to those who purchased a pass for the entire festival – priced at up to 390 euros.

All worries disappear when there are artists on stage capable of capturing everyone's attention. Like the American Ethel Cain, responsible for a couple of magnificent albums, Preacher's Daughter (2022) and Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You (2025), full of a unique folk-rock that is sometimes dark, sometimes bright, as befits the ethic of southern gothic. She was one of the standout names on the main stages in the slot before The Cure's XXL concert, who, at the time of closing this report, were just starting their performance. Ethel Cain appeared on the Estrella Damm stage with a rundown, plant-based staging, like an inbred creature from a Florida swamp or a roadside verge neglected by decades of bad governance, and immediately won over the audience that filled the marine platform. American Teenager, the impetuous start to the concert by this singer who sometimes seems like a black-metal vocalist, gave way to more intimate atmospheres, like those of Nettles, a daring choice in the context of a macro-festival. She pulls it off because the solidity and sensitivity of the songs prevail, as does her magnetism as a frontwoman. There is something disruptive about Ethel Cain, when her voice unleashes its full emotional arsenal while the drums and bass propose powerful progressions in anthems like Ptolemaea, Gibson Girl, and Crush, and in a memorable House in Nebraska. In fact, there were people crying with emotion in the front rows and cathartic ovations when the songs ended.

At the same time as Ethel Cain, but on the West stage, the nostalgia of the early 2000s settled in with the concert of Rilo Kiley, the American indie-rock band that was active between 2001 and 2010. Sixteen years later, they have launched a tour in which they revisit the past, including hits like Silver lining and Portions for foxes, which at the time became very popular thanks to the series Grey's Anatomy. Vocalist Jenny Lewis maintains a naive yet childlike aesthetic, but this does not imply a soft performance, quite the opposite: on stage, she displays a rocker attitude, and also transitions to pop and even soul with I never, one of the songs with which she can shine the most. In her reunion with Barcelona, Lewis seemed emotional when she recalled that she hadn't been to Primavera Sound since 2013, when she performed as part of the group The Postal Service.

, the collaboration she did with Charli XCX on the album Von Dutch, the collaboration she did with Charli XCX on the album Brat: Rae took the opportunity to get off stage to get closer to the audience. Suddenly, the concert transformed from a mainstream pop recital into a high school rave. To prevent the euphoria from dropping, she followed it up with a 100% her own hit, Aquamarine.

Different articulations of noise

In the early afternoon, at Parc del Fòrum there was already a good crowd of people in The Cure t-shirts and looking relaxed. Also among the audience of the Madrid quartet Petunias. All four of them made up as clowns instead of gothic, they opened the Port stage with pop-punk of noisy choruses, feminist claims and existential doubts like that of the song Agota la suerte, which insists: “What will happen to me?” And with a remarkable and refreshing song of spite, Si se muere tu perro (te compras otro y punto): “If anyone has suffered, it has been me,” they sing to the face of the crybaby.

Noise and dissonance at the antipodes of pop were offered by the also Madrid band Somos la Herencia on the Occident stage: intensity and electrical and electronic darkness and shouts at half past six in the afternoon. And noise articulated with the tuning of the abjection of death metal (without bass) was gifted by the Barcelona quartet Ósserp, one of the essential bands of Catalan metal, who took the opportunity to premiere some new songs that do justice and honor a legacy that includes the brutal Els nous cants de la Sibil·la. They started with few people on the Port stage, but little by little, and while L'infinit jou de l'atzar and El rival més fort were playing, enough people responded to the call of extreme metal, which always has a little corner at Primavera Sound. The early hours also allowed for a stroll through other parts of the venue and finding people queuing in front of a van to get jewels on their teeth (“tooth gems” according to the announcement).