Charli XCX turns Primavera upside down with her charisma and megalomania

Rarely has Primavera Sound fallen at the feet of an artist as it did on Thursday for Charli XCX . The rest of the festival was deserted when the British singer took the stage alongside her inseparable Troye Sivan. The pairing follows a comic-book dynamic. If the English diva is Batman—tough, aggressive, charismatic—the young Australian singer is Robin—intelligent, sensitive, and a henchman. Together they turned the festival into a deafening rave amidst broken images, cathode-ray dancing, and lots and lots of cheekiness.

Troye Sivan kicked things off with the heart-pumping "Got Me Started." The piercing rhythmic high notes got everyone dancing. "Today is my birthday!" the young singer announced, and it's no small feat celebrating in front of 80,000 people. With "My My My," another of his greatest hits, his danceable pop became a bit repetitive, but if the formula works, why change it?

And then the madness arrived. Unashamed, with a menacing attitude and a wild spirit, Charli XCX appeared in a white bikini, eager to throw all the clichés into the trash. She opened with '365', a techno storm, broken and dirty, ready to swoop in and break from the first second. Two of 'Brat's' biggest hits followed, the album with which she finally conquered the mainstream: '360' and 'Von Dutch' . The people, who already adored her beforehand, adored her even more. The artist didn't need to sing; others did it for her. The queen ruled and her subjects obeyed more than happily. Thus begins tyrannies.

From here on, the show declined a bit. It lost muscle and ease. First, Troye returned, and this meant a return to soft tempos, crisp production, and an update of '70s disco music . One missed the ticking time bomb that is Charli. And she returned too, but different, not as energetic. Really, at this point, it didn't matter. Everyone was blinded by her irresistible charm.

Until the final stretch exploded into a thousand pieces again. Song after song, hit after hit, Charli and Troye, Troye and Charli, demonstrated the reason for their chemistry. From "I Love It" to "Rush," no one present wished they were anywhere else. Dance, dance, you bastards, as the movie said. Damned, I don't know, but happy and devoted, for sure.

Although Primavera started many hours earlier. At five o'clock, as if it were tea time, an enthusiastic Rigoberta Bandini came out to offer half a dozen songs and welcome the early risers to the Forum. More than a concert, it was a sketch, a small appetizer, with the dancers dissolving in the sun and Rigoberta doubling the irony of her songs.

One of the first sold-out shows of the afternoon came with Beabadoobee . Their revitalized classic indie resonated with an enthusiastic audience who seemed to know their songs by heart. "I've been in Barcelona for two days and I've turned 25. Does that make me old?" she said mischievously. Yes, Beabadoobee, yes, in this Primavera of teenagers and twenty-somethings from all over the world, a little bit.

The truth is that the generational change at Primavera is evident, and it's about time. The only shame is that, with over 70 percent of the audience foreign, or at least that's what it seems, it's clear that the purchasing power of young Europeans is far greater than that of their Spanish counterparts, and they don't fit in here.

Then came the delicacy of Cassandra Jenkins , with a sophisticated staging reminiscent of Celtic music, which captivated an older audience. Her experimental pop, with warm instrumentation, including a saxophone that seemed to have come straight from 'Miami Vice,' had high points, such as her excellent 'Hard Drive,' the closest thing to Laurie Anderson there is.

The always energetic Idles arrived at the antipodes of Jenkins. With shouts of "Long live Palestine!" they performed before an audience devoted to their harangues. Intense, indecorous, brutal, they elevated to delirium a rocky hardcore so English that even their tattoos spoke while spitting beer. With shouts in support of the immigrants who "built your f...ing country," they seemed like bulldogs about to bite you in the... When they arrived at the vitamin-rich "Danny Nedelko," it was a party of happiness and violence. There's no delicacy in Idles, no decorum, there's rage and celebration of being alive, of course.

From here on, the pace was frantic. The Irish singer Cmat stood out, clearly playing at home given the number of Irish flags in the audience. She seemed like a rougher, pub-friendly version of Chappell Roan, but even more dedicated to the cause. She ended up hugging her adoring audience and returned to the stage so exhausted that she collapsed, unable to breathe. Her 80s pop for all audiences turned the ten thousand people watching her into one.

After that, This is Lorelei seemed almost bored, but little by little they managed to recover with their harmless pop index and dance rhythms. When the singer stopped messing around and picked up the guitar, they sounded more organic and exultant. Their anthem "I'm All Fucked Up" sounded fabulous when the night had already arrived and all that was left was to wait for Charli XCX.

More interesting and contemporary were Magdalena Bay . These Argentine-Americans have revolutionized the synth pop scene in recent years, demonstrating this with a baroque staging, with their singer occasionally dressed in poppies or wearing masks in the purest Noh theater style. They created a brilliant Casio commercial on the big screen and offered emotional songs with complex textures and great melodies.

At the same time—this sometimes happens at major festivals—English singer FKA Twigs unleashed her refined, hypnotically charged trip hop to a crowd that sat tight, waiting for their friend Charlie. This was two hours before the day's headliner, and entrances were already closed and audiences were diverted to avoid overcrowding. FKA Twigs's voice and icy atmosphere deserve their own audience, but here she was overshadowed as a simple prelude. Why not reverse the order?

A few meters away, from Cleveland, Ohio, came Midnight . "This festival is very bizarre, and I assure you, we're the most bizarre of all," they said. How right they were. How wonderfully strange they were. They kicked off their journey with the most overwhelming, amphetamine-fueled metal. There are a thousand offerings at Primavera, but most are homogeneous and interchangeable. Not so these; these guys put a new spin on the night, with songs pumping out ten thousand miles an hour, piercing vocals, and a whole lot of theatricality. Dressed in black hoods that hid their faces, their performance was, by contrast, fresh and terrifically fun.

A little further afield, the nineties psychedelia of Spiritualized delighted the old school, the one that came out in the early 2000s when, alas, Spiritualized were headlining. How long ago all that is. Now they only brought together about 5,000 people. Enough. They revived their legendary "Pure Phase" amidst blue spotlights, smoke, strobe lights, and lots of pedal-pumping, note-stretching, and lysergic delirium. Jason Pierce remains unblemished 30 years after an album that altered consciences while healing spirits. Never has psychedelia been closer to spirituality.

Another of the early morning's discoveries was the trance pop of Kelley Lee Owens . Under the motto "Pure Euphoria," a concert kicked off with her alone among synthesizers and mixing boards. Her songs are sentimental, suggestive, and absolutely danceable, based on emotional electronics. Nothing better to whet your appetite for the main course: the omnipresent Charli XCX.