The last dance at Sónar in Montjuïc

BarcelonaSónar closes the 2025 edition with attendance figures very similar to last year's: 52,500 at Sónar by Day (1,500 fewer than in 2024) and 66,500 at Sónar by Night (500 more); that is, a total of 119,000 attendees, 1,000 fewer than last year. However, the data provided by the festival also includes the 42,000 attendees at OffSónar and the rest of Sónar Week activities in the city's various venues. This gives a total of 161,000 visitors (7,000 more than in 2024).

All of this at the festival's latest edition on Montjuïc. Sónar has never sought refuge in nostalgia. That would be absurd at an event that was born to promote "advanced music." However, it would be understandable to reveal a little, given that this Saturday marked the end of an era. And not just any era, but the most successful in this history that began in 1994 at the CCCB and the Sala Apolo. When the festival moved its daytime activities to the Montjuïc fairgrounds in 2013, it took a qualitative and quantitative leap forward. Now, the renovation of Fira Barcelona forces Sónar to leave a location that has left many iconic images and where Sónar+D has also been held in conjunction with the concerts. Next year, on June 18, 19, and 20, a new Sónar will begin, with all the activities concentrated at the Gran Via 2 fairgrounds in Hospitalet de Llobregat. There will surely be logistical improvements, and the festival management will know how to find a way to personalize an immense space that offers many possibilities, as well as accessibility. "It will be a radically new proposal that will integrate all the shows and activities of Sónar by Day, Sónar by Night and Sónar+D," say sources from the festival.

Unfortunately, the last daytime dance in Montjuïc has been bittersweet due to the cancellations of some artists (including Samantha Hudson at the last minute) dissatisfied with the ties to Israel of KKR, the fund that acquired Sónar (and other festivals) in October 2024. The festival itself and the artists who performed have condemned "the genocide of the Palestinian people," and have appeared at many concerts. For example, at Mushkaa's concert, which closed this Saturday at SonarVillage with the message: "KKR out of our culture. Free Palestine."

On a Saturday when the festival was competing with the first of two Billie Eilish concerts at the Palau Sant Jordi, Mushkaa (stage name of Irma Farelo) had an hour to get to work. "It'll be a pretty quick gig, only hits", he warned before the keyboard introduced "the most romantic song" in the repertoire, MimeninaThe sound has not done justice to the salsa arrangement, and Mushkaa's voice has not come forward either, neither in this song nor, towards the end of the concert, in It seems unbelievableThe singer from Vilassar de Mar, who performed at Cabró Rock in Vic on Friday, is performing with a large band, with guitar, bass, percussion, trumpet, saxophone, keyboard (and accordion), and a backing vocalist, and a stage set featuring a soccer goal net with a heart-shaped hole. However, the concert flows better when there is less rhythmic ambition, because there are Latin patterns that require greater consistency. However, right now, Mushkaa works well when she relies entirely on charisma and uses simpler rhythms, as in What a mess either Good life, which featured live collaborations with 31 FAM and Flashy Ice Cream. The band format doesn't suit him as much, or he doesn't quite have it in his grasp, and it spoils the generational power of the album's material. SexySensitive. There were other collaborations at the concert, such as that of his sister Greta. Or the cumbia he shared in absentia with Guillem Gisbert (whose voice sounded canned). "Thank you for supporting local artists," he said, acknowledging work that has been a constant throughout the history of Sónar.

Before Mushkaa, in SonarHall there was an interesting performance by Cantabrian Amanda Nur, who proposes a journey to the mysticism of Hildegard of Bingen through electronics (and also with a grand piano). In fact, she comes from a classical background and is just beginning this journey, which already includes an album, Snow OmThe same stage was later taken over by the duo Paranoid London with techno-house, probably more entertaining in the early hours.

Nocturnal hedonism

From Friday to Saturday night, Sónar's activities moved to Gran Via 2, where the hedonism that also dominates the daytime offerings multiplied. One of the main stars at SonarClub was Peggy Gou, the South Korean resident in Berlin who has become one of the stars of current electronic music. With a menu of house and disco, ingredients of proven quality, she did exactly what the audience was surely asking for: to link material designed for dancing. On the same stage, British artist Kieran Hebden, better known as Four Tet, once again demonstrated his ability to incite dancing with often unpredictable tools, moving from UK garage to techno and jazz. In other spaces of the fair, such as SonarPub, Northern Irish artist Max, a PhD in computational biology, encountered technical problems that prevented him from properly presenting his project. Lattice 3D/AV. The hedonistic component was also fundamental in the session of the Berliners Modeselektor at SonarCar and the relentless show of the Northern Irish Bicep, who returned to the festival to present Chrome at the SonarClub.