The Best of Primavera Sound 2023: Blur, Kendrick, Rosalía, and More

By Eric Torres and Sam Sodomsky

Catch enough sets at the Primavera Sound Festival, which wrapped up its latest Barcelona edition Saturday night, and you’ll start to notice a pattern. "What a pleasure to be here at Primavera, the greatest rock’n’roll festival in the world," Adam Granduciel said early in the War on Drugs’ Saturday night set. It's a sentiment shared by numerous performers, who return to the festival year after year to play for excited, sprawling crowds late into the night and take in the beautiful beachside scenery. From casual festival-goers and full-on obsessives to outright skeptics, it's hard to imagine anyone not finding something to enjoy during the week that the festival takes over the city. After all, you could lose it on the dancefloor to pop phenomena like Rosalía, mosh by the sea to the epiphanic black metal of Liturgy, or hear a Numero Group DJ set featuring the rarest-of-rare Italo disco 7''s, and still feel like you’ve only scratched the surface. Below, check out some highlights from an action-packed weekend.

Primavera Sound 2023 will continue this week in Madrid and Porto.

Full disclosure: Pitchfork attended the festival as guests of Primavera.

Midway through Blur's set on Friday night, Damon Albarn spoke to the audience: "We’re gonna play a B-side from 1993. Are you okay with that?" This is not the type of banter you expect to hear during a reunited band's headlining festival set, but then again, Blur are no regular band. While the setlist was packed with hits, from "There's No Other Way" to "Song 2" to "Coffee & TV," their loose, energetic performance stood out for how natural everything felt: equally crowd-pleasing and defiant.

Eight years since their last album and tour, the Britpop legends have maintained their distinct style: the way bassist Alex James takes over the melodic lead when Graham Coxon rips a guitar solo; how they can suddenly launch into an instrumental like "Intermission" as if they’re still hashing it out at rehearsal. The new songs, from their upcoming album The Ballad of Darren, were placed boldly in the set: They opened with the glammy, shouty "St. Charles Square" and included lead single "The Narcissist" right among the classics in the final stretch, pushing the whole band to sell its wistful, melancholic slow-burn. And after they played "Luminous," that ’93 B-side they haven't performed in more than two decades, Albarn leaned back from the piano bench with a mischievous smile. He seemed as surprised as anyone that they pulled it all off. –Sam Sodomsky

The last time Rosalía appeared on her hometown stage at Primavera, she was riding high on 2018's El Mal Querer. Four years later, the Spanish pop singer has become one of the country's biggest stars in recent memory, and a sense of hometown pride beamed throughout the final day of the festival. Seemingly all of Barcelona came to her headlining set, decked out in their most fabulous Motomami gear. The crowd erupted when the show finally began just after 2 a.m. and she appeared dressed in a black bodysuit, flanked by backup dancers and being followed by a camera that tracked her every move. The crowd matched her energy at every step, singing along word for word to pounding standouts "Saoko" and "Linda" without missing a beat; she even passed the mic to a fan during "La Noche de Anoche" who, bless his soul, tried his best during what was clearly the surreal highlight of his life. Everyone knew she wouldn't disappoint, but Rosalía's return to the Primavera stage held the kind of energy you get from knowing everyone there feels like family. –Eric Torres

Kendrick Lamar hadn't played in Barcelona since 2014, an absence that could be felt in the buzzing anticipation in the crowd before the Compton rapper took the stage to headline Friday night. Kendrick put on a thundering performance, backed by a fleet of backup dancers and a set of elaborate, painted murals of Black families that shifted between songs. The crowd, the most animated that I saw during the entire festival, was more than ready to sing his biggest hits back to him, rising to deafening heights during "Humble" and "Backseat Freestyle." He also delivered a few surprises, including the live debuts of his verses from Pusha T's "Nosetalgia" and the Weeknd's "Sidewalks," and closing out his set by bringing out Baby Keem, who had performed his own energizing set earlier in the night. It may have taken almost a decade for Kendrick to return to Barcelona, but he made sure to deliver tenfold to make up for the time away. –Eric Torres

As Friday night wound to a close, dubstep titan Skrillex took to the Estrella Damm main stage for another of the most hyped performances of the day. Concertgoers waved inflatable aliens and palm trees in the air while the DJ opened with a screwed-down version of the Spanish classic "Gracias a La Vida" before quickly shifting into thudding tracks from his recent pair of albums, with the most dramatic drops punctuated by fireworks-level pyrotechnics. Within 10 minutes, however, Skrillex ground the set to a halt: "Wait, is that a fire?!" he asked, pointing to the lighting rig above his setup that was now ablaze with thick flames. While Skrillex was commendably quick to calm everyone down and get emergency crew on the scene (thankfully, no one was hurt), it was a brief, hectic moment of chaos in an otherwise smooth-sailing festival. The DJ returned after half an hour to raucous applause and dove right back into his set of rapid tempos and heart-pounding remixes (his version of Ice Spice's "Princess Diana" was an especially surprising treat). –Eric Torres

Nobody should ever include Death Grips and Måneskin in the same sentence. But by booking them back-to-back on stages directly next to each other, Primavera left me no choice. No experience was more viscerally enjoyable than being among the booing Death Grips fans when the Italian rockers started eating into their heroes’ set, the anger intensifying with each passing minute. As if making up for lost time, the trio launched instantly into a pummeling DJ mix of a set with no breaks or banter or moments to catch your breath. Death Grips took the form of visions from a nightmare acid trip: In front of a bold red screen, each member appeared as a demonic silhouette. It was the coolest stage design I saw at Primavera, and the audience moshed and crowd-surfed with a momentum that can only come from the release of pure, unbridled anger. —Sam Sodomsky

Le Tigre had some stiff competition during their late set on Thursday night, performing at the same time as Halsey and Blur were dominating the main stages, but that didn't stop a crowd of diehard fans from converging to see the feminist electro-rock band on their first tour in nearly two decades. The trio tore through classics like "Deceptacon" and "TKO" as though no time had passed, with Kathleen Hanna, JD Samson, and Johanna Fateman each dressed in vibrantly colorful outfits that gleamed under the light show. Hanna and Samson split banter duty, with Hanna giving especially impassioned speeches deriding oppression and urging the audience to take action against it wherever they can. With each irrepressible song, Le Tigre's mission of stressing political themes within nervy dance music remained thrillingly clear. –Eric Torres

Caroline Polachek brought her island to life on a stage designed like a beachside getaway, whose weather patterns shifted with each song: "We’ve entered the heartbreak portion of the set," she announced a little over halfway through, as storm clouds rolled in. The connective tissue was her incredible vocal performance, which sounded just as controlled and virtuosic as it does on record. This gift, along with her live backing band, allowed her music to span multiple genres and moods, and it stood out on "Sunset," the Shakira-influenced single that she introduced in Spanish with a palpable excitement. It was an endearing moment, and the best parts of the set transcended language entirely. "You got this, right?" she asked before instructing the audience to sing the wordless refrain of "Pretty in Possible." They responded in kind, and for the span of her set, the island was big enough for everyone. —Sam Sodomsky

Not many surprise guests popped up during this year's Primavera, despite the seemingly obvious proximity between certain sets. Yet that made it all the more enjoyable when Alex G brought out Caroline Polachek and Maya Laner (aka True Blue, a member of Caroline's band) to duet with him during "Mission," from last year's God Save the Animals. As a breeze mingled with plumes of smoke drifting over the crowd, Laner and Polachek added a welcome wistfulness to the song's gentle, haunting melodies that lifted it to new heights. While "Runner" was the song that got the audience the most worked up, inspiring a rousing singalong during the song's euphoric chorus, it was "Mission" that left a lingering sense of tranquility over the late-afternoon crowd. –Eric Torres

There are dramatic performers… and then there's Christine and the Queens. With wildly intense theater-kid monologues between songs (I quote: "I am sick with wanting. I am trapped in my prison of flesh.") and a narrative through line that involved a human falling in love with an angel (with Chris seemingly playing both characters, complete with a pair of wings), his set had an emotional impact unmatched over the weekend. The performance was all about tension, evident in Chris’ deeply physical dance moves, in the pounding, show-stopping drums, and in the vivid but abstract new material from the upcoming album Paranoïa, Angels, True Love. And while some artists introduce songs with, say, a count-off to four, Chris preferred something resembling a prayer: "Lords of music, take me there." And how they did. –Sam Sodomsky

For an artist whose studio records can sound like the meticulous work of a superhuman perfectionist, Yves Tumor's set was charmingly scrappy. Leading a noisy rock band—whose Ed Hardy-sporting guitarist caused one fan in front of me to Google images of Yngwie Malmsteen to help make a comparison—Tumor assumed the most traditional, shit-stirring characteristics of a lothario frontperson: venturing into the audience to make physical contact, making out with the camera, headlocking and humping bandmates, stripping articles of clothing to reveal a belt that simply read "SEX." Early on when fans began chanting "turn it up," Tumor quickly took action, calling out the sound person by name and declaring, to roars from the audience, "I’m gonna go back there and do that shit myself. Should I do it?" With the rock’n’roll bravado on display, I sure as hell wouldn't try to stop them. –Sam Sodomsky

The audience at Primavera loves Depeche Mode. And when I say "loves," I don't just mean "Give a warm Barcelona welcome to Depeche Mode." I mean there was a group of women in front of me with homemade Memento Mori wings affixed to their backs. I mean the entire crowd seemed to instinctively make a very specific glasses gesture with their hands to lift to the sky in tribute to the late Andy Fletcher upon hearing the opening synth squelch of "World in My Eyes." I mean the length of "Home" was seemingly doubled because the crowd didn't want to stop chanting the melody of the closing guitar riff. And if I thought people went nuts for, say, the Eurodancey remix of 2005's "A Pain That I’m Used To," then classics like "Personal Jesus" and "Enjoy the Silence" were full-on celebrations, an energy shared in Dave Gahan's dramatically sassy showmanship. For a band recovering from tremendous personal loss and touring their strongest new music in ages, the admiration felt mutual. –Sam Sodomsky

No artist seemed more genuinely happy to play Primavera than Michelle Zauner. Some bands tighten their sound over the span of a tour, but Japanese Breakfast seem to have lightened and opened up during the past two years of touring behind Jubilee. Incorporating new textures and instruments to suit each song—saxophone, violin, 8-bit synths, noisy guitar solos, a gong—it was a set that exuded a sense of joy from beginning to end. "This is the most beautiful festival I’ve ever been to," Zauner told the crowd. "I feel like I’ve worked my whole life to be here." Judging by the confidence and versatility of their performance, there's no limit to where they’ll go next. —Sam Sodomsky

"Does this bring you back to your childhood?" an extremely drunk British kid asked me when New Order launched into their 1983 classic "Your Silent Face." It was a momentarily mortifying question—How old does he think I am? Do I dance like I’m 50? Is this the music from my childhood?—but my worries were assuaged by the non-sequitur poignancy of his next remarks, made in response to trippy visuals of a woman diving into the ocean: "I wanna go swimming." Heavy on the classics and honoring the band's entire history—including a tribute to Ian Curtis during the closing "Love Will Tear Us Apart"—New Order designed a set for us all to reflect on our past. It was unifying, sentimental, and occasionally, transcendent. –Sam Sodomsky

On the last night of the festival, Kelela had just finished performing the soothing "Washed Away" as her opening song when her mic suddenly cut out. Urging the audience to give her time to figure out the sound issue, the singer vanished offstage. The crowd chanted her name throughout the 10-minute break, and when Kelela came back and started from the top, she sounded even better than before. While clearly annoyed at being forced to cut her set short (she was eventually drowned out by Måneskin's overblown theatrics a stage away), Kelela was calm and confident as she performed new standout Raven tracks like "Happy Ending" alongside the Cut 4 Me throwback "Bank Head," all set against a swirling backdrop of hallucinatory colors. Despite the sound setback, Kelela coolly reclaimed her ground to provide a pacifying tonic toward the end of the festival. –Eric Torres

On the first day of Primavera, as festivalgoers explored the massive grounds under the warm sun, rising British rock band Black Country, New Road held a plum early time slot on the main stage. Known for shapeshifting music that blends emo with experimental rock, the group performed a suite of tracks from their recent Live at Bush Hall, splitting singing duties between members. The band opened up their new songs with lush adornment, ranging from flute and piano to banjo and trumpet, and seemed utterly at ease onstage; at one point they sat down in a circle in the center to give keyboardist May Kershaw the spotlight as she performed the gentle standout "Turbines/Pigs" on her own. The set was an appropriate fit for the bright afternoon, finishing with a triumphant singalong to "Up Song (Reprise)" as someone in the front waved a scarf emblazoned with the band's name in a show of utter devotion. –Eric Torres

St. Vincent is still in her Daddy's Home era, sporting the blonde bob from that album's cover art when she took the Primavera stage late in the day on Saturday. Her captivating set brought songs from that album interspersed with old favorites, fleshed out with a heavy-hitting band that matched each of her face-melting guitar solos during highlights like "Your Lips Are Red" and "Digital Witness." Between songs, she worked her way through decently fluent Spanish to sing Barcelona's praises, raising a glass to it as her "ciudad favorita" while the audience raised their own and cheered back. As with many artists at the festival, you could tell the relaxing setting was its own inspiration. –Eric Torres

Alvvays fans lined up early for the Toronto band's late-night set on Friday, and for good reason: by the time the five-piece finally came onstage for their first time at Primavera, the crowd had already ballooned out toward the bar. The band didn't disappoint, performing a handful of fan favorites ("Archie, Marry Me") alongside tracks from their outstanding latest album, Blue Rev, with each relentless hook met with whooping shouts from the crowd. ("Are there any very online guys in the audience?" singer Molly Rankin pondered aloud to a roar before launching into "Very Online Guy"). It may have been Alvvays’ first spin at Primavera, but the fanatical enthusiasm from the audience all but guarantees it won't be their last. –Eric Torres