MUSIC: El Primavera Sound es una convención de gilipollas (y lo sabes)

Conclusiones extraídas de las pasadas jornadas en el Primavera Sound 2017:

1. ❤👊❤SKEPTA❤👊❤
2. Como estrategia de marketing está bien, aunque podrían haber traído a Frank Ocean. #fuckOcean

3. Lo de HAIM no sé si sobraba, pero alrededor de unas 328762831721^65 personas, sí. #ExpectedPrimavera
4. Keith Richards lo dijo una vez y lo repito: si veo a un puto crío entre el público, no hay concierto.
5. 👹👹👹SLAYER👹👹👹
6. Va en serio, petición en Change.org YA para que Jon Sistiaga haga un programa sobre gente que lleva carritos con bebés dentro al Primavera Sound y el porqué de que no abortaran directamente.
7. Seres que aguantan la misma copa de plástico en la que antaño hubo vino TODO. EL. DÍA. Sabemos que los contenedores de basura estaban tan a rebosar como vuestras reservas de líquido posturéico, pero para algo está el suelo, coño.
8. Run the Jewels 👍, aunque ya que les petó el micro y los técnicos de sonido se comieron medio set mientras intentaban arreglarlo, podrían haber acabado un poco DESPUÉS, no ANTES de lo previsto.
9. Chicas y novios de chicas con mierda brillante/heces de unicornio en las mejillas: siendo tan libertinos y antisistema, deberíais probar de ir un día con la cara así a la oficina, a ver si os despiden o no.
10.💣💣💣KATE TEMPEST💣💣💣 
11. Quisiera dedicarles un aplauso a todos los niños y niñas hambrientos del Primavera Sound que, en un ejercicio de pura supervivencia, se gastaron 14€ en dos kebabs porque no habían comido en 3 semanas para ahorrar y poder pagarse el abono, evidentemente. 
12. Quisiera mandarles un saludo a todos los cantantes que gritaban al público WHATUP BARRRSELOUNAAAAAA❓❗❓❗❓❗ cuando había más gente de su puto pueblo que de ningún lugar remotamente cercano a Barcelona.
13. ¿Qué tipo de coca hay que esnifar para que la sistemática violación de derechos humanos fundamentales que es estar en el Primavera Sound sea divertido?
14. Podrían haber sido Arcade Fire, la Banda Trapera del Río o media docena de orangutanes tirándose caca desde un árbol; según un estudio, el 97,4% de los asistentes al Primavera Sound se lo hubiesen pasado igual de bien.
15. 💚💚💚SEU JORGE💚💚💚

BONUS TRACKS:

16. 💓💓💓💓💓💓❤👊❤👊❤SKEPTA❤👊❤👊❤💓💓💓💓💓💓
17. 😍😍😍SLEAFORD MODS😍😍😍
18. 💙💚💛💜💘TÍOS CON VESTIDO Y GENTE DISFRAZADA DE DINOSAURIO Y/O DE OSO💘💙💚💛💜
19. El sonido en el Parc del Fòrum hace llorar al niño Jesús.
20. El Primavera Sound se parece a Gibraltar o a una cámara de gas al aire libre pero sin música.

Conclusions drawn from attending Primavera Sound 2017:

1. ❤👊❤SKEPTA❤👊❤

2. As a marketing strategy it was okay, although they could have brought Frank Ocean. #fuckOcean

3. I don't know if HAIM was necessary at all, but I'm pretty sure 328762831721^65 people weren't. #ExpectedPrimavera

4. Keith Richards said it and I repeat it: if I see a fucking kid amongst the crowd, the show is cancelled.

5. 👹👹👹SLAYER👹👹👹
6. Seriously, can somebody please start a petition on Change.org ASAP for the BBC to make a documentary on cool dads in Primavera Sound pushing buggies with babies inside and why they couldn't just get an abortion straightaway.

7. Individuals who carry the same plastic cup where there used to be wine in ancient times ALL. DAY. We know that trash bins were overflowing just as your reserves of poseriotic fluid but hey, that's what littering is for. 

8. Run the Jewels 👍, although since the sound engineers swallowed up half of the set while trying to repair Killer Mike's mic, they could have ended LATER, not EARLIER than scheduled.

9. Ladies and boyfriends of ladies with gliterry shit/unicorn faeces on their cheeks: now that you guys are so libertarian and anti-establishment, you should try and go with your faces like that to the office and see if you get fired or not.

10.💣💣💣KATE TEMPEST💣💣💣

11. Shout-out to my starving girls and boys out there in Primavera Sound who, in an act of pure survival instinct, spent 14€ in two effing kebabs because they had been fasting for 3 weeks to save money and afford a full festival ticket, obviously.

12. Shout-out to the lead singers screaming WHATUP BARRRSELOUNAAAAAA❓❗❓❗❓❗ to the audience when there were probably more folks from their one-horse town than from anywhere remotely near Barcelona.

13. What type of cocaine does one have to snort in order to find the systematic violation of fundamental human rights that is being at Primavera Sound amusing?

14. They could have been Arcade Fire, they could have been Milli Vanilli or they could have been half a dozen orangutans throwing crap at each other from a palm tree; 97,4% of Primavera Sound attendants would have had an equally awesome time, study says.

15. 💚💚💚SEU JORGE💚💚💚

BONUS TRACKS:

16. 💓💓💓💓💓💓❤👊❤👊❤SKEPTA❤👊❤👊❤💓💓💓💓💓💓

17. 😍😍😍SLEAFORD MODS😍😍😍

18. 💙💚💛💜💘DUDES WITH DRESSES AND PEOPLE DRESSED UP AS DINOSAURS AND/OR BEARS💘💙💚💛💜

19. The sound quality at Parc del Fòrum makes baby Jesus cry.

20. Primavera Sound is a bit like Gibraltar or a gas chamber but without music.

All pictures taken on early morning 3rd June 2017 at Primavera Sound 2017, Parc del Fòrum, Barcelona, Spain. Special thanks to Guillermous Hermous for digging Slayer so much.

MUSIC: Symphony X + Myrath + Melted Space at KNUST Hamburg: surrealistic hammering progressive metallic disco

The story of how I ended up getting caught in this gig one Thursday night is certainly very short and mundane and can't even categorize as a story precisely because of its shortness and mundaness. It's like buying yourself a new pyjama; the fact that it just happens once a year doesn't mean anybody cares about it. Infrequency doesn't equal remarkableness, you know. 

So it goes like this: one day I was with Selim and he had this nice box set of classic blues and asked me "hey, there's this dope (Selim doesn't come from the suburbs of some mainly African-American populated city in Michigan, so he'd never use the word "dope", but just to give the narrative a ghetto feel, spice things up) band from Tunisia playing here soon, would you like to go see them? There are not that many successful Tunisian bands, you know!" and I said "Sure!", in hopes that he would offer to borrow me (I, on the other hand, am very much upper Midwestern) that nice classic blues box set, which he never did. The End.

It turned out to be my very first experience in the world of progressive/symphonic rock, so now I can write it down in my Things To Do Before Dying list, then cross it out and pretend I have accomplished something in life. Also it took place at KNUST, a club I had never been into, and they had this Keith Richards Allee plaque at the bar there, which made me feel like I wasn't completely out of my element.

The first opening act was this French symphonic metal band called Melted Space from Troyes, Champagne Ardenne (as everybody knows, the true cradle of symphonic metal) that just had too many fucking people on stage. Seriously, I mean, Ian Stewart was kicked out of the Rolling Stones for less; these guys were eight up there, eight!!! And I know eight must be the number of the beast and Iron Maiden and all that crap, but come on, they couldn't even move!

They had this terrific pale skinned lady soprano who answered to the name of Delauney Clémentine, though, with such an outstanding bone structure that would make any Tim Burton's dream. I was really captivated by her, and also by the appallingly archetypical mane shaking of her older and blonder fellow singer; he totally looked like the definition of paying-the-cost-to-be-the-metalhead-boss, and provided me with excellent gif material.

Then it was Myrath's turn, the guys we were there for, most successful Tunisian band since the invention of couscous. Technically they were supposed to be the second supporting act, but they definitely should have been headlining the thing, because these lads just plainly killed it. In addition, the singer, Zaher Zorgati, is kinda hot and has a hot name too, so you've got the whole package there.

But he's not just a pretty face, don't get me wrong; the man can sing his guts off, as you might have seen in the video above, and the cante jondo resemblance of his moaning made me feel even more at home (that's what eight centuries of Al-Andalus does to you). The combination of hip-length jebbas and skinny leather pants was just the most accurate outfit reflection of their music; unexpected, fascinatingly unusual and magically harmonious, probably because they don't force the two worlds, hard rock and traditional Tunisian music, to clash, but let them live together within a healthy distance. The combination is too mystifying to at least not give it a try, I mean, come on! Maluf and progressive metal! It's like fried Oreos, sounds too good to taste bad!

And finally the headliners, Symphony X, band from New Jersey that could be defined as "what Salieri was to Mozart, they are to Megadeth" (symphonic pun intended). I was a bit pissed off at them because around the beginning of their set, a guy came and told me to stop taking pictures with the camera, that it looked too professional (thanks?). Anyway, I honestly enjoyed their show, it all seemed and sounded like extremely up tempo 1980s house disco; the colourful, epileptic lights, the mannerisms of the players, the back-combed hair styles... I also fell for all the romantically doomed stories behind the songs that the lead singer, Russell Allen, shared with the crowd, his tragic views on the outsider state of the metal music world these days and the masks (see video above) he pulled off at some points during the concert.

In the end it was all worth it and we had a blast, because and in spite of the fact that nobody gave me the blues.

All pictures and videos taken on 17th March 2016 at KNUST Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

La foule

+ They claim [···] that they don't look for trouble. You know, they just try to live peaceful lives and be left alone. But, on the other hand, they go out and put themselves into situations, deliberately and constantly, that are either gonna humiliate somebody else or cause them to avoid humiliation by fighting. [···] This whole kind of alienated, violent subculture of people wandering around looking for, you know, either an opportunity or, if not an opportunity, then vengeance for not getting an opportunity. Then they get to be 30, and suddenly they wake up one morning and they realize, you know, there are no more chances. It's all gone. It makes them meaner, you know, and maybe they want to get back at the people who put them in this terrible, this dead end tunnel. 

- Now who are these people they want to get back at? 

+ Oh, they don't know. It's kind of "they", paranoid. You know, it's you, it's me, it's whoever might come too close to them on the highway in a car. It's somebody that makes a remark in a bar to them. They call them "the citizens", anybody who looks like respectable and looks like he isn't doomed, you know, like he has some kind of option, or money, or a home or all the things they don't have. 

- What do you see for us, for everything? 

+ Christ, it's bad. I mean, I'm not very optimistic. But I think one of the most important things is to recognize that we do have this mounting violence in us, and then to find the reasons. And once you find that, it's like curing a boil. And if people insist on saying "I'm a very gentle person and only these littlee bad gang of hoodlums over there is ugly and mean", then it's just putting off the recognition that the same venom that they [sic] are spewing around in public, a lot of people are just keeping bottled up in private. [···] Yeah, I learned a lot about myself just writing about them [sic]. I was seeing a very ugly side of myself a lot of times. I'm much more conscious of the kind of anger that lurks everywhere. But I don't do any, you know, I keep my mouth shut now. I've turned into a professional coward.*

Hunter S. Thompson to Studs Terkel, 1967, via Blank on Blank

* None of the things quoted above apply to Selim.

All pictures taken on 17th March 2016 at KNUST Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

Selim Legacy

"You don't owe me nothing because I love you guys".


All pictures taken on 17th March 2016 at KNUST Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.