Primavera Sound Barcelona 2025 – 5 June 2025 (Barcelona)

Year after year, the route from El Maresme | Fòrum metro station on the opening Thursday of Primavera Sound is an opportunity to experience the event’s unique atmosphere. In 2025, even inside the subway car, you could see a sea of young people aged 20–35 dressed in green ‘Brat‘ clothing, with only a few national attendees. Five quick minutes that confirm the generational and stylistic change that the organisation has been banking on for a couple of years now.

Photo of Charli XCX by Henry Redcliffe, courtesy of the Primavera Sound 2025 organisation.

Idles

Due to work commitments, it was not possible to arrive at the Forum before 20:00, so the first act we saw at the festival was the English band IDLES on the renamed Revolut stage. The Bristolians have become regulars at the festival with every new album they release, and their incredible 2022 concert is still etched in our memory. The presentation of the magnificent Tangk (2024) was not going to be an exception.

With the sun setting behind them, we could rest assured that the calmness that seems to have matured them on their records has not affected their energetic live performances. Ten seconds after the distant opening number, ‘Colossus‘, we could see the first pogoing in the audience, who also chanted ‘Free Palestine‘ throughout the show, supported by the band members themselves.

Despite being a remarkable show, it lacked rhythm in the middle, during which Joe Talbot also had some vocal difficulties. However, from ‘Benzocaine‘, with the two guitars doing crowd surfing and a short intro of Carli XCX’s ‘Guess‘, things improved. The triplet of ‘Dancer‘, ‘Danny Nedelko‘ and ‘Rottweiler‘, performed almost entirely in the dark, left a great taste in the mouth after a concert by a band that never disappoints.

Photo of Joe Talbot of Idles by Clara Orozco, courtesy of the Primavera Sound 2025 organisation.

Magdalena Bay

In an attempt to maintain a consistent “editorial line” in terms of style, the dichotomy between FKA Twigs‘ more electronic show and Lambrini Girls‘ new punk style would lean towards the latter in the 501 Club’s mousetrap. Unfortunately for us, the tiny stage meant that many of those waiting in the long queue to enter were left outside. With little desire to make another trek to the main stages, we opted to watch the colourful pop of American band Magdalena Bay perform their debut album Imaginal Disk (2024) in full.

It is true that their mix of easy synth-avant pop has no great pretensions and that at times it can even be childish, but it is also true that you only have to watch 20 minutes of their concert to imagine what ABBA could be like today. Between the energy of their singer Mica Tenembaum (apart from her multiple costume changes) and the catchiness of their songs like “Vampire in the Corner” or “Tunnel Vision”, the concert passed quickly, leaving us with the desire to see how the future evolution of the band could be.

Photo of Midnight by Sergio Albert, courtesy of the Primavera Sound 2025 organisation.

Midnight

We then made a U-turn and headed to the small Trainline stage to see Midnight, Athenar‘s solo project, live. Here, he combines black and speed metal with classic punk-rock influences. Without a doubt, this was the most outstanding performance of the night, with the band going without a break between songs. Athenar himself took turns singing and using the microphone, alternating with the new guitarist who joins him on stage. He also took the opportunity to present an overview of his already extensive discography, which includes more than twenty releases, ranging from demos to albums. Instead of focusing on his latest album of covers, released last March under the title Steel, Rust and Disgust (2025), he chose to highlight other works from his prolific career.

It is hard to pick out a single moment from the concert, which at times seemed to resemble an updated version of Motörhead, but the three almost back-to-back songs from Hellish Expectations (2024) in the middle of the set delighted the 200-strong audience, who enjoyed the enigmatic singer from Cleveland.

Photo of Jason Pierce of Spiritualized by Gisela Jané, courtesy of the Primavera Sound 2025 organisation.

Spiritualized & Parcels

A few metres away, we were able to enjoy the last three tracks of Spiritualized performing Pure Phase (1995) in its entirety. As always with Jason Pierce‘s band, the sound was spectacular, accompanied by a choir and a string section that successfully conveyed the various layers of this precious album live. With 30 minutes still to go until the main act of the night, we went to see Parcels. They performed a set of electropop that had the entire audience gathered at the Amazon Music stage dancing. It’s a shame that, given how well they matched their style to close the day on one of the main stages, their show coincided with the main event for much of the time, because they would surely have enjoyed a larger audience who wouldn’t have stopped smiling at the cheerful, multi-voiced performance of the Australians.

Photo of Charli XCX and Troye Sivan by Henry Redcliffe, courtesy of the Primavera Sound 2025 organisation.

Charli XCX & Troye Sivan

The last walk of the day was to see the main act, Charli XCX, who, alongside Troye Sivan, brought the SWEAT show, with which they have been touring the US, to Europe for the first and only time. While both were present at last year’s Primavera Sound, the success of Brat (2024) and its subsequent remix album has elevated their status.

What can we say about the concert? It’s an incredible show where the music is the least important thing. The fact that the singers alternate on the stage every three songs makes the show less fluid, with the two of them sharing the stage only during ‘1999‘ and the finale with ‘Talk Talk‘, which, incidentally, showcased the greater intensity of the British singer’s songs. On the other hand, the importance (and abuse) that Charli XCX places on scenography means that her voice is not present in most part of her songs, resulting in a feeling of karaoke for the masses that, at times, loses the plot before so much movement and little singing.

With walks on the lower part of the structure that held the stage and several videos featuring remarkable hypersexualisation, the concert went by quickly. with two blocks of the one from Cambridge especially standing out. The first one under the green curtain, with ‘Brat’ written in the background, saw him start with ‘360‘ and ‘Von Dutch‘, as well as a middle part where he concatenated ‘Everything is Romantic‘, ‘Speed Drive‘ and ‘Apple‘, unleashing the madness of the audience when Chapell Rohan herself appeared on the screens performing the dance that has gone viral on TikTok in the last year.