The curtain does not come down at Paredes de Coura. Instead, as Saturday’s headliner Franz Ferdinand plays their last couple of songs — unlike in their national debut back in 2006, they do not shy away from performing crowd pleaser “This Fire”, even though, one more time, forest fires wreck havoc across the country — an arsenal of colorful balls is being pulled from the very top of the natural amphitheater. They’re launched at the audience as the festival’s aftermovie is shown to a sold-out crowd immediately after the end of the show, to the tune of the unofficial anthem of the festival. And we can’t help but feel nostalgic already.
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?
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.
2023 was a landmark year for Primavera Sound Porto: the tenth coming of the festival was also its first without their lifelong naming sponsor, the first four-day long edition at Porto’s Parque da Cidade, and a new main stage and festival grounds’ layout were tested for the first time. Ditching the gorgeous, secluded meadow where the ATP stage once sounded like sacrilege. But the new layout, including previously fenced off areas of the park that are closer to the sea, undoubtedly makes things smoother in a festival that started to feel too crowded, as per last year’s experience. We could do without the smell near the new main stage, but let’s blame the weather for that.
It’s midnight in Groningen. It’s the end of an abnormally warm November saturday and it should also have been the end of an eight hour marathon of roots and americana across six rooms in the De Oosterpoort complex. But Garrett T. Capps and his NASA Country have different ideas. Suddenly, a “curfew” seems like a malleable concept as fellow Texans Robert Ellis and James Steinle join the band on stage for a sprawling and ecstatic “Born in San Antone” and a version of the classic “She’s About a Mover”, penned by San Antonio’s very own Doug Sahm. Capps seems comfortable as the frontman to a 21st century version of the mighty Texas Tornados, powered by a strong rhythm section and an unusual synth that takes his brand of Americana to another dimension. I’ve been calling it krautcountry after seeing them in Paradiso’s small room in the same evening as Faust and Camera, and you should too.
