It’s that time of the year again! After writing about 100 albums in 2022, the bar was way too high in 2023. So I didn’t, and ended up not publishing it at all. So let’s not do that anymore. Here’s my top five, plus 95 of my other favorites in no particular order.
And it’s gone. Our tenth trip to the Parque da Cidade is over, and despite our usual (and some new) gripes, our eyes are already on next year’s edition: 12, 13, and 14 June 2025. Let’s start with the pros: the three ‘green’ stages of Primavera Sound Porto (the original Vodafone and Super Bock side-by-side stages, plus the new Plenitude stage by the meadow) are unrivalled. You’ll struggle to find any other festival this size where it’s so easy to see most shows from a good spot without having to show up half an hour in advance, no matter how tall you aren’t.
Sadly, the fourth one, the new main stage, is nothing of the sort. A massive stage is necessary for the festival to grow, be able to pull big headliners like SZA and Lana del Rey, accommodate 40k+ visitors, and keep the lights on by selling thousands of daily tickets to people who may or may not care about anything else on the lineup that day. It also helps keeping the festival somewhat affordable – although increasingly expensive – for its core (is it really still the core?) audience who comes to Porto for three days of music. But, after two years, the organisation should now decide, before it’s too late to reverse course: is this kind of growth desirable at all?
On Saturday, June 8th 2024 I was supposed to see my 15th Shellac show. Three weeks after Steve Albini’s sudden passing, it’s still hard to imagine we’re not seeing their name on Primavera’s lineup ever again. Shellac is an impossible band to replace, and the organisation knows it well: it was either silence or a celebration, and we got a Shellac Listening Party instead, where their first album in ten years, To All Trains, will be played in its entirety.
In 2024 we also mourn the loss of the Bits stage, which is unavailable for this year’s edition. We lose the clubbing part and a nice shelter from the rain, but there are good news, too. Music starts earlier, with the first shows starting around 16:30, and it stops earlier, too: expect to be home before 3 am. What a dream.
Expect the best food court of any music festival, maybe a little bit of rain, stunning headliner sets by Pulp, Mitski and Lana del Rey, and the greenest the park has been in recent years, as per the festival’s director. Read on to know about our top ten non-headliner sets for this year, and listen to our special Spotify playlist.
Primavera Sound Porto 2024 runs from June 7 to 9 and full festival tickets (plus day tickets for Thursday and Saturday) are still available on the festival’s website. As usual, you can download our printable timetables here (Excel/3-day view) and the mobile PDF version here.
Don’t get me wrong, I love all the festivals I made a habit of visiting every year, both in my home and my adopted countries. You know the ones: festivals where 90% of the acts either sing in English, and/or come from the Anglosphere. Just like I’m writing these lines in the current lingua franca instead of my own language so you can understand me. But there was something refreshing about my first trip to MENT Ljubljana, and that had to do with the variety of latitudes and, most importantly, languages and regional traditions you get acquainted with on stage, without any pretence of the whole thing being labeled a world music festival.
Because it isn’t – it is a showcase festival, with mainly 30-40min long shows, aimed at discovering new-ish artists from all over Europe, where you’re surrounded by professionals from the music industry – around 700, according to MENT – but also music lovers from all around the region (7000 across 4 days). Except for the odd loud conversation at one of the shows of the opening night, this was probably the nicest and most polite audience I’ve been surrounded by, and that’s something.