It’s not only the well-known that get a crack at convincing the Primavera crowds, as the young Moses Sumney plays the Pitchfork stage early on in the second day. And, really, he hadn’t expected over a handful people to be there, let alone the sizeable hand he gets dealt early evening. “Who lied to you?”, he asks, smiling, as in his mind the reason people are there cannot possibly be him and his music. He is certainly enjoying himself, treating the audience on one hand to slow, soul & country inspired tracks, and on the other hand he gets the looping pedals going, doing the claps, vocal lines, and other assorted sounds to provide, in the end, a full fledged track over which he sings with a soulful, velvety voice.

The middle part sees most of the slow songs, dragging the pacing a bit, and some of the loops go wrong a tad. Which one can forgive since he does everything himself. In the second to last song he gets the second rhythm clap just a tad wrong, but after a moment’s hesitation decides to just go with it as, well, festival time is unforgiving with the short set-up times between bands. On the whole though, Sumney is pleasant to listen to and, with the sunglasses and cape and the fact he does everything himself, nice to look at. If the album lives up to this promise, maybe next time he is accustomed to those numbers in front of him today.

Same stage, half an hour later, it’s Nao. Her backing band comes on, all in black, and with the slight electronic tinge that her EP has, one perhaps expects something mysterious or broody or the likes. And there she comes, dancing, beaming, and all smiles in the most summery, colourful dress anyone has probably ever owned. The band adds some oomph and takes away some of the cold from her EP, instead even rocking it a bit with some guitar riffs and the likes. In the mean time, Nao is doing the dancing and the singing, both convincingly and with enthusiasm, so much so that it gets contagious. She ends with her track ‘Zillionaire’, which is basically an ode to loving and being happy (as money don’t mean a thang). That is what she not only sings, but exudes as well, and the message gets across.

As far as headliners go, they just don’t get much bigger than Radiohead. It’s silly to expect anything less than a simply jam packed field full of people, an undoubtedly eclectic mix between the die hard creeps, those that never leave the main stage area anyway, and those curious by the skyscraper like reputation of Thom Yorke and band. Surprisingly, the sound even in the belly of the beast is excellent, the band even at times visible due to the slightly upwards curve of the field, and all those kinds of people (after an initial hush by the fans unable to get further upfront) join in with attentively listening to the band. Unheard of, really, and Radiohead manages to cash in on that and deliver a super set.

The band goes from super small to a bigger sound, to more experimental to the hits that everyone knows. ‘Paranoid Android’ is there, a superb version of ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’, and the band connects so much with all them fans that the crowd spontaneously erupts in a chorus of For a minute there, I lost myself. And then, at the end, the gut punch, the heartbreaker, the ode to all the people who are prone to gather at the Primavera festival; "I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here". It takes a second encore to get there, but they get there, and you can see it’s what many people wanted to hear and the lines with which they want to join in and resonate.

Holly Herndon’s album isn’t the easiest listen, but I’ve worked my way through my share of experimental sounds, including hers on tape. Live, though, she goes from experimental and outside of the box to downright inhospitable, making it such a tough listen for me that I’m finding myself moving further and further away until I’m nowhere near the stage anymore. I’m not demanding three chord songs and verse-chorus-verse structures, but these sounds asked for a ticket that I didn’t have on me, excluding me rather quickly from whichever group it is that might enjoy her live show.

On the Adidas stage it is Shura who brings her brand of dreamy electro/synth-pop to a crowd that already includes some definite fans, eagerly awaiting her arrival and giving her the idol treatment. I like her songs, but despite her at one point donning a guitar and moving all over the stage, the band’s sound seems a notch too tame to really win the votes and hearts of those out there. Compared to a Nao earlier that day, and Jessy Lanza the day before, it feels a bit too sleepy-headed, making it a slight dud to end the second day with.

For the third year running, Primavera Sound is the festival of choice. Especially for a city slicker like me, there’s something about the beach festival right in the beautiful city of Barcelona that just works. Standing at the top of the staircase if one wants to go down to the Pitchfork or Adidas stages you can see the city lights along the beaches stretch from left to right, and, when at one of the main stages, you can see the tall, Barcelona buildings betraying the fact that, yes, you are smack in the middle of one of Europe’s biggest cities out there. If you go to festivals for the camping, camaraderie, or wellies and mud, this might not be your thing. For those alienated city weirdos, the eclectic programming only enhances that there’s no singular group one belongs to.

Beak> starts off my festival, and do so amazingly well. The trio knows how to do their brand of rock, and the way they slide from one part of a song to the next is a real marvel. The guitar work is really splendid, throwing out some nifty lines, and the set is varied enough throughout to keep people exactly where they are for the entire duration. You can see this is a band of pros, who know what they are doing, and who then apparently can enter a new synth player into the starting line-up without any major hitches during the songs. They, themselves, seem to enjoy it all as well and thus the start of the fest is as positive as one could hope for.

It goes quickly downhill though, as I love Destroyer, but the sound is muddled. Any time there’s a guitar that enters the song, the pristine craftwork of the band comes tumbling down. Which is a crying shame, because last year seeing them in an indoor venue at Le Guess Who? was amazing, with Dan Bejar fronting his band’s intricate works with passion. Here, too, he goes for it, but what worked indoors doesn’t work at the Ray Bans stage today. I’d happily see them again, somewhere, someday, but this makes for an exit before their full time is up.

Which doesn’t get us in time to Air, at least not to see them in a proper position. Chatty people surround us everywhere, which isn’t necessarily the way you want to enjoy the super clean, even pristine, sounds of the French band. The vocals sounds angelic, and it seems they have their stuff together for this one, but it is a bit too rowdy where we are standing, which means we don’t get the beauty, and it only comes off as tame. We wait until ‘Sexy Boy’ comes (oooohhhh-hooo), and then we go from the main stage to one of the smallest stages there is.

Now, being brought up with MTV Unplugged, I’m curious to see what an unplugged version of electro-pop artist Jessy Lanza will sound like. It is the Ray Bans Unplugged stage after all. Apparently, not really, as the show starts wildly late because of all kinds of difficulties with the electronics, cables, and assorted instruments that are on it. When she does start, she starts hesitantly, with not everything completely doing what she wants yet. Drum sound is a tad off, and the microphone doesn’t seem to register her lower singing, although it evidently does manage to catch the high yelps. The two women on stage are down two sets to love and serve is to the other side.

If one band can be proud of today’s set, it is though these girls. Not only do they right the ship, they rebuild it to a cruise liner with the best party in town. The crowd is getting increasingly more into it (it’s packed, and then some), and they are regaining their swagger, which breathes new life into the tunes. This year releasing her album Oh No, she rolls through catchy and punchy songs like the title track and a prolonged, dancey version of ‘Never Enough’ in which she gives it her all. Being last on the stage, she can make up for some of the time she lost at the start, and all there are all the happier for it.

From a young woman ready to reach a wider audience to an old all-American music composer showcasing the oeuvre he has built up during years and years in ol’ Hollywood. That, and doing some Ennio Morricone to boot. John Carpenter has a full band backing him as he does all these well-known synth riffs from the movies we grew up on or belatedly watched somewhere during our lifetimes. That deep synth sound is the key, and the rest of the band fleshes out the sound perfectly. In the background we see the images of the movies these tracks graced, and he does some work off his Lost Themes albums too. Carpenter shows you don’t need to be a fresh, young face to suddenly appear at festivals and engage and hype up crowds, you just need some quality work and a keenness to play them. So, from slasher flick soundtracks to album material, we get it all, with the haunting synth sounds giving the Barcelona night some extra flavour.

Back on the main stage we celebrate the return of LCD Soundsystem, and in a headliner set we get everything we want and more. The roster is one of all-stars, with Nancy Whang and John MacLean from The Juan MacLean with Pat Mahoney and Gavin Russom, staples of the DFA roster, and Al Doyle from Hot Chip we just have it all there on stage. And then, the main brain behind it all, James Murphy, rocking, dancing, and yelling out all the frustration and anxieties that one builds up in life. From dance-punk tracks to all-out disco, from rawness to the super slick; we get everything and more in a headline-worthy set by the New York band.

We get the old work, with tracks like ‘Yeah’, ‘Daft Punk Is Playing At My House’, and ‘Losing My Edge’. The last one has a beautiful, slow moving bass base, making you dance and swing your body as Murphy narrates what basically seems like a nervous breakdown turned around, for, in the end, yeah, they might be more interesting, prettier, and have an amazing web plan, but I was there when all that fantastic shit went down.

‘Home’ is one of my favorites off the last album, such a slick creature it is, Talking Heads-inspired, and ending with that fab line "If you’re afraid of what you need, look around you, you’re surrounded, it won’t get any better". Closing out it’s the piano anthem ‘All My Friends’, saying what, in the end, after all, turns out to be really important. That you’re there, with friends, and surrounded by people with similar anxieties, dancing and losing it to a band that — for perhaps a niche group but still — defined a generation for some. And they, here, tonight, showed why in a strong, get-yr-feet-moving set.