Primavera Sound and the art of never standing still

This was the most notable realisation of a commitment that the beloved festival had made several years earlier. Back in 2019, the festival launched “The New Normal” campaign, a landmark gender promise to maintain a 50/50 gender-balanced line-up. This prompted initial concern that there weren’t enough female acts to make an even split viable. However, the success of placing a trifecta of female pop artists at the top of the bill proved to be a triumph rather than an indelible risk.

At the same time, this move generated scepticism about the integrity of Primavera Sound's identity, which had long been built on its status as an indie-rock-oriented festival. While Primavera Sound has become something of an amorphous amoeba over time, gradually incorporating more and more multigenre acts onto its stages, the full-throttle shift in headliners prompted concerns that the festival might continue to function as a commercial pop machine, raising the question of who the festival is catering to.

The 2026 line-up suggests that Primavera Sound can reclaim its identity and offer something for everyone, without relying too heavily on pop spectacle as a source of ambition. At a glance, many of this year’s headliners — The Cure, Massive Attack, Gorillaz, Addison Rae, Bad Gyal, Skrillex, My Bloody Valentine, and The xx — veer towards “legacy act” status within their relevant genres, while others are in the process of building their own significance. It offers both a generational spread and a run of artists who map coordinates over the past few decades of alternative music without stagnating.

So, rather than testing the waters of what new, exciting pop leadership can do at Primavera’s scale, the festival’s programming considers a more elusive point: What is legacy? How is it earned, and how can it exist beyond a shelved nostalgia trip?

This is first explored on Thursday evening with Cameron Winter, who has been carving out a lasting path for himself as both a solo artist and the lead singer of Geese, garnering attention as one of the most compelling young songwriters in rock music right now. Winter has been met with comparisons to Leonard Cohen, Geese are said to be emulating a more contemporary, Gen-Z-levelled version of The Strokes. There is a grasp for familiarity.

Winter is scheduled to perform a solo set in the Auditori at 5 PM, but a queue begins forming at midday. And for those who don't get the opportunity to catch Winter and his piano once the venue space hits capacity, attendees can find him on the Occident stage fronting Geese as they perform the best cuts from their 2023 album 3D Country, and Getting Killed, released to great acclaim (and somewhat divisive public opinion) last year.

It’s at this point, fresh into the first full day of Primavera Sound, that the weather breaks. A heatwave that preceded the festival is cut by a heavy downpour and wind that sweeps across the Parc del Fòrum. The NYC band is unfazed, though. Drenched, they see their way through to the end of the set with an established professionalism for a searing performance of “Trinidad”. The audience, seemingly equally unaffected, opens a circle pit that morphs into a larger runway as plastic poncho-clad bodies thrust into one another in one great, damp, amalgam.

Between hours of queueing and the desire to remain at a set despite torrential rain, a level of devotion to the music is evident. But as Geese leave the stage and poor weather conditions escalate, a cascade of cancellations follows. While Oklou delivers an career-building performance at the Cupra stage (which she later describes as “the biggest crowd I had ever played to with the shittest weather”) Alex G’s performance on the Revolut stage is shut down, followed by Mac DeMarco on the Occident stage. The eventual full closures of the Estrella Damm and Revolut main stages also mean that headline sets from Massive Attack, Doja Cat, and Bad Gyal can't go forward either.

It’s a brutal opening mourned and corroborated by the artists involved, with Doja Cat issuing a video apology to explain to fans that “it’s just not safe enough”, while Massive Attack, who previously pulled a 2022 Primavera slot, express that they “waited for as long as we possibly could” to present a new show with bespoke new content and special guests.

While the infrastructure is unable to continue to accommodate the big names due to unprecedented circumstances, the underground prevails. Through the low-visibility deluge that continues on and off into the wee hours of the night, your best bet is to follow the sound of the music from stage to stage as the night’s remaining artists hold down the fort.

Japanese noise rock band Melt-Banana are almost as brash and unforgiving as the turbulent sky at the Port stage, compelling people to slam into one another once more in a frantic mosh like a darkened tumble dryer that never empties. Meanwhile, Fcukers bring their characteristic electro-cool to the Schwarzkopf stage, turning the pavement into a Brooklyn dancefloor. It’s during these moments that the most movement in the crowd occurs. In a way, the disruption to the planned schedule meant greater exposure for artists positioned on smaller stages. And greater exposure of attendees, shielded by the sodden night and willing to let their guard down. Silver linings, right?

With that, Thursday sees the festival at its most exposed and apologetic, but Friday becomes a bid to get into recovery mode. The sky remains overcast, and flirts with a chance of rain that (thankfully) never comes. There is a trust in the Parc Del Fòrum to be desired, and a fresh vigour in the air to make the most of the remaining days beyond the standard festival drift. Irish indie outfit NewDad amass a notable crowd at the Estrella Damm stage that only lingers, grows, and crosses over for Slowdive at the Revolut stage. Considering the fact that the band reformed just over a decade ago after a twenty-two-year hiatus, their presence comes across as continuous, regardless of whether the set dipped into 1993’s Souvlaki or 2023’s Everything Is Alive.

It’s a promising indicator for acts who would be coming together after years of separation over the course of the day, including Rilo Kiley, who are on a comeback run following a 14-year hiatus, and post-hardcore band Texas Is The Reason, who reformed to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their 1996 debut album, Do You Know Who You Are? And most notably would be The Cure, whose two and a half hour set is a behemoth introduction to their Summer Festival Tour — and first live appearance since 2024. With a set featuring a handful of rarities, unearthing “Lovesong” B-side “2 Late” for its first performance since 2019, as well as “alt.end”, which was last performed in 2018, and “Mint Car” last performed in 2016, their performance never grows tired as they balance out the hits with the deep cuts. For a band more than forty years into their career, The Cure sound remarkably sharp and refreshed.

But at the same time, the day holds space for pop’s rising stars to stake their claim. PinkPantheress fills Cupra to the brim. Gone are the days of the London artist performing with a handbag tucked under her arm and a gentle pace. She’s decked out in a costume reminiscent of her latest remix album, Fancy Some More?, backed by dancers, and is quick to identify that she’s potentially outgrown the stage she's on. It’s a considerable ascent for PinkPantheress, who released her first song just under ten years ago and found herself riding along with a sudden breakthrough.

So when Addison Rae is handed the baton as the weekend's sole headlining pop princess by default, it would be easy to read her presence as a concession, the last remnant of last year's pop-forward energy dampened by circumstance. Instead, she affirms the value of pop performance as a constructed art form that she has a firm hold on, even in the early stages of her career. Comparably, Rae and PinkPanth are newcomers but as some of the biggest names in internet pop, they're also trailblazers.

As the Saturday sun settles over the Parc Del Fòrum, the spirit of Primavera Sound appears to return in full force — and in a considerably more cohesive way. Ponchos are out of sight in favour of outfits that captured a more maximalist club glam, or the occasional “SHOEGAZER” t-shirt, providing a visual dichotomy of what the remaining programming has on offer.

Saturday is an intergenerational flipbook with monumental crossovers. There are few places where you’ll spot ankle-length jorts and frosted tips these days, but with Joey Valence & Brae on site, late 90s/early 2000s nostalgia is rampant as they play out a fiery punk-rap set. Smerz carry a classic, calculated mystique that throws the audience back to the present, before the experimental soul of Dijon and the airy, minimalist electronica of The xx.

While Little Simz performs a solo set, she also reappears alongside Gorillaz for their headline performance. It’s a remarkable multiverse as they are also joined by Kara Jackson, Moonchild Sanelly, Yasiin Bey, Bootie Brown, and Posdnuos across various tracks, with an introduction by Palestinian activist Aarab Barghouti. It’s one of the most unifying moments of the weekend, solidifying Gorillaz as collaborative giants as they move through twenty-five years of material, utilising different voices to enact the performance as a living document.

Prior to this, My Bloody Valentine return to the festival for the first time in thirteen years. The massive set pulls from Loveless and Isn’t Anything maintain an immersive, hypnotic blend of visuals and fuzzy melodies, closed out by a three-minute noise interval as part of the closer “You Made Me Realise”. It ripples across the Parc Del Fòrum, demonstrating that MBV don't need to dress things up.

And the night holds a final redeeming surprise for the festival: a performance from Olivia Rodrigo on the Occident stage revealed earlier in the day. It creates a slightly polarising clash with My Bloody Valentine, but it balances out the rock-heavy topline of the evening. While she moves through her catalogue with a seasoned ferocity that has become customary for her live shows, Rodrigo unveils new song "what's wrong with me" with Robert Smith sticking around to duet. In a post-set interview on site with BBC6 Music, Smith commends Rodrigo for her performance abilities with great praise: “I genuinely love what she does. I’m slightly in awe of how easy she finds it all.”