As an avid collector of vinyl records, attending concerts is a huge component of expanding taste. Touring musicians often share the the stage with similar bands, record label mates, or even a DJ playing choice cuts plays between sets. Music festivals, on the other hand, are a bit more intense from a commitment perspective especially if they’re more than two days. They force you to slow down a bit and check out musicians unknown to you.
Before the pandemic hit, my friend living in Ireland and I planned to meet in Madrid for MadCool 2020. We purchased tickets during the week of release in 2019, but when its cancelation was announced during the first wave of COVID-19 we submitted refund requests and waited for future festivals to be announced.
In 2021, Primavera Sound 2022 was confirmed and we were able to secure tickets for the second weekend.
Primavera Sound is a bit special schedule wise; I’m sure other festivals do something similar but I haven’t seen any as heavily promoted. Leading up to both festival weekends there are concerts at venues around Barcelona under the Primavera marketing umbrella called Primavera a la Cuitat. You could go to a concert everyday for two weeks straight if you had the energy for it! Since the shows were free for festival attendees the queues to get in were insanely long. You need to commit to arriving early – sometimes hours before doors opened.
As a Californian attending this festival, I should caution others that jet lag was incredibly hard to deal with in the beginning (and more so when I returned home). I was at the festival each of the three days from around noon until 6-7 am! I have great appreciation of how the country and culture of Spain deals with time: siestas, late dinners… all the aspects of being social.
I would definitely recommend using a festival abroad as a holiday vacation idea to change things up. Would I go back? Maybe – but it makes sense to attend a different one.
graveyard shiftin 