Primavera Sound's Barcelona edition came to a final close on Sunday, June 12, as the dual weekender celebrated its 20th anniversary, as well as a long-awaited return due to the dreaded virus-that-must-not-be-named.
Primavera Sound, which now also hosts editions in Porto, LA, São Paulo, Santiago, and Buenos Aires has long been lauded as the muso's paradise, omitting the sometimes bleak realities of camping in a field for several days in the joyous Barca sun, along with some of the best up-and-coming and long-established acts, including numerous exclusives you won't catch at many other UK festivals.
While there's definitely the heartbreaking reality of festival clashes to contend with at any event, Primavera Sounds weekend 1 and weekend 2 didn't quite balance out. And this was felt through the music and organisational choices, it was certainly a festival of two halves, and as such, this is a review of two halves, from our time at weekend 1.
Prima-Very Good
As you'd hope, the music was sublime. Tame Impala dutifully brought out the hits and even kindly took the time to cover The Strokes' hit 'Last Night', when the New Yorkers were forced to cancel due to Covid (more on that later).
Beck piled through a hit-packed and diverse set on Saturday and even took the time to play Barcelona's premiere nightclub Razzmatazz during the week. Meanwhile, other huge highlights were Jorja Smith, bringing an ecstatic crowd through at her sunset set.
Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn brought out a huge host of guests, and an even bigger box of instruments, charting through years of the band's biggest hits, and even squeezing in THAT remix of 'Clint Eastwood', which was incredible to see live.
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Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds played a deep and introspective set draped in their customary black and white hues, including the fan-favourite Peaky Blinders theme tune, 'Red Right Hand', and a heartbreaking dedication of 'I Need You' to his two sons who tragically passed away.
And that's just for starters – the sound, visuals and performances for the likes of Warpaint, Charli XCX, Little Simz, Disclosure, Fontaines DC, and many more were huge standouts across the festival's first three days.
There was also the smaller quality of life elements, firstly the toilets (especially good on the Bits side of the festival with water taps, flushing loos, and toilet roll), to reusable plastic cups which charted line-ups from 20 years worth of Primavera festivals.
Another advantage of smaller beers vs UK festival pints was that they didn't go flat by the time you reached the end and stayed colder for longer. We were also a big fan of being allowed to bring in a 'reasonable' amount of food each day.
Despite taking place on such a brutalist concrete venue, Parc del Fòrum, the site's creative use of lighting, and setting so close to water allowed it to feel truly unique compared to so many other festivals, whether that was by the beach at the Dice stage or relaxing next to the acoustic acts the Jack Daniel's waterfront bar.
Primavera Sound's Barcelona edition also did an admirable job of avoiding the sound bleeding between stages, which is no easy task with so many being open and outside. We watched the likes of Caroline Polachek perform at a packed Plentitude stage without the thumping beats of the nearby Cupra x Boiler Room merging with her set.
And probably a very small highlight is the Primavera Sound logo itself, which sits in numerous places across the site but also moves at the back of the Binance stage, making it ideal for Instagram Boomerang fodder.
Primavera Not So Sound
So what didn't work so well? Firstly, the line-up's major acts were definitely heavily weighted towards the second weekend. Sure, some major acts played both (Tame Impala, Gorillaz, Tyler the Creator, Jorja Smith), but many only appeared for weekend 2, including Dua Lipa, Lorde, Phoenix, Megan Thee Stallion, Interpol and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Sure, fans could certainly choose the weekend to buy tickets or even stump up for a dual weekend pass, but that wasn't an option for everyone as tickets sold out for those who had a limited budget. The feeling of a booking unbalance was exacerbated when The Strokes, a weekend 1 headliner, pulled out following a Covid-19 diagnosis.
Of course, that's totally beyond the festival's control and they did manage to re-book the band for weekend 2 of the festival, also allowing original Friday ticket holders in to see them on weekend 2, but this didn't do much for weekend 1 ticket holders. Feeding the feeling of unbalance between the two weekends.
The two-class system with tickets also leaked into the festival's organisation on-site. A shortcut bridge which connected one half of the site to the other was restricted to VIP, Soho House members and media (which full disclosure, we formed part of), and as we understand had been for everyone in previous years. Therefore standard ticket holders had to make a much longer walk around the bottom of the site to get there.
This meant the Bits area (including the beach, Tous, Night Pro, and Dice stages) was rarely full as it was such a long walk for the non-VIP crowd, and also seemingly bottlenecked them to the other half of the festival. This was a crying shame, as it was a really unique area. The e-scooters you could sign up for were not the solution to resolve the situation, either.
Another major issue of the festival's first day was the bar queues, which ran for hours, and like most other major festivals, you couldn't bring your own drinks in, including water (more on that shortly) but for some reason, you could bring in food. The festival cited staff shortages due to Covid-19, and to their credit, it was resolved by day 2, but this didn't stop it from impacting the experience.
There were originally three water taps on site, which were increased to six on day two which is still very low for a crowd of 65,000. For us this involved spotting the map they provided on Twitter, and asking numerous staff for water, before finally finding one who took us behind a railing and gave out two cans.
This on a weekend of weather with lows of 19-20°C seems like an unnecessary risk. Yes, the festival mostly takes place after sunset with gates opening around 5pm, but you couldn't shake the feeling it was an attempt to push the purchase of drinks at the bars.
Primavera Sound's fringe festival Primavera a la Ciutat allowed fans to enjoy acts across the city between the festival's two weekends, which is an excellent idea, and a great way to boost tourism.
But despite being billed as first-come-first-served entry, the reality still favoured those who spent the most, with weekend 1 + 2 VIP ticket holders, or any VIP tickets given priority over others. Even fans who turned up hours early for Cassandra Jenkins were turned away for not having the most expensive access.
Overall, Primavera Sound is a good festival – it wouldn't have made it to 20 incredible years, or built up such a strong reputation, without doing something right. But due to a series of Covid-19 complications and poor organisational choices, 2022 definitely held it back from being a truly great festival.
It's so fantastic to have live music back again, especially after the past couple of years, but that shouldn't be at the expense of safety, or purely to make as much money as possible. Here's hoping for a much smoother listen at Primavera Sound in 2023.
Primavera Sound festival has other international editions taking place in 2022 and you can buy tickets here.
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Laurence Mozafari (he/him) is a multi-award winning journalist, editor, and presenter. A former Editor-in-Chief of Digital Spy, Laurence previously held roles as the site's Editor, Deputy Editor, and Associate Editor focusing on news, social, and video. Laurence hosted the BBC Sounds podcast Obsessed with Peaky Blinders in 2019. He also hosts his own podcast production, Time of My Life, where he interviews fascinating elders about their life lessons, including Only Fools and Horses' Sir David Jason, Star Trek’s George Takei and Bridgerton’s Adjoa Andoh.
Laurence was named Editorial Director – Youth Audience at Reach in early 2025. Prior to joining Digital Spy, he was previously at Bauer Media working as Digital Editor of Heat magazine's website Heatworld.com, and has also worked at and written for Sky, NME, Q magazine, Grazia, Closer, FHM and dedicated careers website GoThinkBig. He secured a first-class BA journalism degree at Staffordshire University, along with several NCTJ qualifications, and now has 14 years' experience in digital publishing covering TV, movies, music, gaming, tech, showbiz, and travel.
Laurence has been a broadcasting contributor on television and radio, including KISS, Heat Radio, BBC Radio London, Radio 5 Live, and BBC Breakfast.
He is also a visiting lecturer at various universities teaching journalism, including City, University of London, Nottingham Trent, Staffordshire University and London Metropolitan. Laurence has won numerous awards in his journalism career, including the BSME Talent Award’s Best Deputy Editor, the PPA's 30 Under 30, and the New Editor and Editor of the Year at the AOP and BSMEs. He led Digital Spy to win PPA's Digital Content Team of the Year twice, along with the British Media Awards’ Brand of the Year in 2021.
Laurence joined the committee for the British Society of Magazine Editors in 2022 and was named vice-chair in 2025. He has since hosted panels with CEOs of Immediate Media and the Media Trust at the PPA Festival, as well as presenting his own radio show on Green Man Radio at Green Man Festival in 2022. Laurence is also a Brits voting academy member.
Laurence has been lucky enough to interview numerous celebrities, actors, and musicians throughout his career. Arnold Schwarzenegger loved his hair, Jimmy Carr loved his coat and Antonio Banderas gave a shout-out to his mum. Laurence has covered set visits for The Witcher on Netflix and Marvel’s Inhumans, he got Daisy Ridley to do a Chewbacca impression and loves Marvel, PlayStation, Glastonbury and craft beer. Linkedin
