Well, I've only been back from Barcelona a few hours, but I'm already
homesick for the place! As for the SONAR Festival it was the most
overwhelming and well-organised festival I've ever been to and if any of
those spy satellites are able to detect areas of intense pleasure then I
reckon pointing them at Barcelona over the weekend burnt out even their most
durable sensors!
I flew into Barcelona on Wednesday morning, checked in and went to pick up
my tickets and attempt to purchase some for the Stockhausen show in the
evening (where I was to meet up with a few 313 listers too)... The CCCB
(Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona) where the daytime festival is
located is postioned so that you can only initially approach it in a spiral
fashion
from a distance twice as far as you initially start out from, and when you
get there you're advised to return on the first day of the festival where a
ticket booth will be there for ticket collections, or to proceed to the
nearby branch of FNAC at the top of La Rambla (the main street in Barcelona)
where a rather large queue of people attempted to buy tickets in 10% Spanish
and 90% English or other non-Spanish language, or so it seemed - I'm
starting learning Spanish for next
year so I don't end up sounding like a retard every time I open my mouth
next year!
I missed our meet up at the Teatro Tivoli but I did get to see Karlheinz
Stockhausen performing "Hymnen" - the theatre was half empty and many of us
didn't know whether to be impressed or not - I guess 30 years ago this was
revolutionary stuff, but nowadays it sounds a little dated, though the
excellent four speaker system in a near dark auditorium (where we had been
advised to close our eyes to appreciate the colours of the music) lent it a
great deal of power...
The following day was a nightmare queueing up for tickets - the ticket unit
opened up at the same time as SONAR itself did, and many of us found that
after waiting (in
sweltering heat) only one of the queues was for pre-ordered tickets, and
that queue went even slower as it appeared that every four or five people
there was some asshole who had screwed up his ticket order and wanted to
argue about it for half an hour. However the time waiting in these queues
was particularly useful since it gave you time to peruse the excellent [and
free - something you would never see in the UK] programme which had times of
bands, a small paragraph in Spanish and English about all the acts and
contributors, maps and plenty of pictures of those scary psychic twins who
adorn all the promotional material!
Finally in and I got a chance to look around the place - the central
courtyard of the CCCB had been layed with astroturf, with the trees peaking
through, lending the place a rather surreal and artificial look, with the
main stage in one
corner of this set-up; to each corner on the left were tents where you could
sample the latest gear (by which I mean turntables, beatboxes, samplers,
synthesizers, etc and not drugs!); at the other side was a computer tent
filled with iMACs - definitely the most effeminate looking computer's ever -
and round the corner a long tent with brightly coloured deck chairs to watch
the acts from. Outside the main building was a record fair with some
incredibly well-stocked stalls mainly from Barcelona and Madrid record shops
(Barcelona has some great record stores outside of SONAR - especially La
Casa and CD.Drome where records are about the same price as domestic
releases back home in the UK and stocks are very comprehensive). Further
down the street in the adjacent
MACBA building another stage was erected in what appeared to be an old
church, where outside in the Placa del Angels kids continued skateboarding
as if nothing was happening (and on one day I saw schoolgirls doing Brittany
Spears and Spice Girls dance routines around a ghetto blaster!). Down in
the basement was an art gallery and another stage. The bars sold beer,
water, Coke (coca cola),
Fanta and the local Red Bull type drink "Dark Dog" (or Black Dog as the bar
staff kept calling it!), plus donuts and "bocadilloes" - long armadillo-hard
rolls filled with jamon (ham), salami, atuna (tuna), questo (cheese) or a
mixture of the previous, plus there was also a buffet mid afternoon with
plenty of fine
vittles for hungry festival goers...
That afternoon I caught things like Anamaria playing Alku (rather bizarre
electronics which sounded like she was doing (and failing) a soundcheck all
the time, but
she did have a cute cut-out pussycat), local boys Substuff doing some rather
plain techno on the main stage, Opopop doing weird electronic stuff, Turner
back on the main stage
(sliding very close to bad 80s semi-electronic pop music in my opinion), and
much better, another local boy Jean doing some fine drum and bass on the
main
stage. Lastly I caught the best act of the day, again from locally, called
the Nairobi Trio plays Business Class - from easy listening to acid house,
mixing mainly from CD but keeping various coloured vinyls spinning on the
record decks with a warm summery vibe that had people up on their feet and
dancing!
Finally to the first evening and the first (and only) real hole in the SONAR
organisation - transport. The bus running from the bottom of La Rambla to
the Pavello de la Marbella several miles away is infrequent and there
doesn't
appear to have been any extra buses put on to cope with the long queues of
hyped-up ravers! Some girl managed to keep the people happy by handing out
flowers she had been given on the way down (hardly suprising as every
Spanish girl we met seemed to be either drop-dead beautiful or totally
fucking gorgeous - must be all that sun and sea air!) to everyone in the
queue!
Finally I got there and inside and immediately bumped into the 313 list guys
I was meeting up with - Steve Lammers (DJ Horsepower from Detroit's only
regular intelligent techno night), Tom Linder also from Detroit, Greg Earle
from LA and Dan Butler (who came on the same plane as me and curiously I
never saw again)! We got a drink in and were just in time to see some
pretty
sketchy looking dudes in "eyes without a face" bandages, who turned out to
be
Artist Unknown. This was truly amazing stuff in a wild retro-electro pop
kind of way, as they implored us to "Dance Like Spastics" and even covered
one of those sad Bon Jovi records with the computer singing along whilst
they played via some giant remote control and danced on top of the speakers
the way only Flavor Flav can! Mad and very very entertaining.
Next we headed around the side to catch Funkstorung, whose addition of an MC
seemed to be an ill-thought out mistake; the guy just seemed to get in the
way and Greg's replies to "Do you want to hear another motherfuckin' tune?"
of "no we want you to get the fuck off so we can listen to the music" were
echoed in the mouths and minds of pretty much everyone there... Apart from
that Funkstorung were on form!
We headed to the back of the site to check Super Collider, but I found them
a little on the dull side, so I returned to catch the Stereo MCs being the
Stereo DJs, playing a fine selection of old hip hop cuts, then A Guy Called
Gerald giving us a selection of cuts from his new album (along with a singer
that was pretty good, and an MC that wasn't) and ending with fine versions
of Voodoo Ray and Blow Your House Down. Lastly it was down into the massive
SonarClub for David Morales with a great selection of house music until 6am.
An incredible brilliant night which only pales beside the other two nights
of SONAR! I met up with Steve and Tom as they were getting onto the bus
(very convenient!) and we swapped notes on the way back! A great first day
and a great excuse to sleep off the first few acts of the next day.
Friday afternoon promised more of the same, but since I didn't get there
until mid-afternoon I can't comment on the early hours. I caught some house
cats from Montreal, Les Jardinieres, on the main stage, checked my e-mail on
the iMACs (though you really feel you should be checking your make-up on
those things) and bumped into Steve and Dan who had just arrived. Next I
checked weird electronic shenanigans with Wergifosse and Spiro playing using
meccanno and rubber bands amongst other things. I wandered around the art
exhibits downstairs which were quite amusing - lots of record cover graphics
and so on and little do you all suspect that amongst your record and CD
collections you are only short of a glass cabinet to start your own art
gallery! I came back, having paused upstairs to watch people (not) lining
up to have their pictures taken with the scary SONAR twins (who looked
rather bored by the whole proceedings) and caught Speedy J in the basement
(before which I saw a little of the rather dull Portishead clones
Goldfrapp) - he performed a set which came across in a similar style to
Richie Hawtin's Consumed, slowly building walls of rhythm that seem set on
the edge of breaking loose into hard techno, treading the line between
ambience and FTTMFF but ending up slipping into breakbeats- great stuff!
Next up the daytime highlight - VVE or Panasonic and Einhart of Einsturnede
Neubatten (or whatever they are called) - some old rocker type guy who hits
a big dock off spring and sheet of metal whilst Panasonic respond with moody
walls of feedback - I saw this piece last year, but now Einhart has added
the destruction of a breeze block with a metal hammer atop the metal sheet
to the proceedings which was a source of much mirth. At the end the crowd
were going wild with applause and the three of them looked totally blown
away by the audience's critical response!
Lastly it was Add N to (X), as usual on form - a similar act in a way as
they also play junk, though they play junk synthesizers which they find at
car boot sales! As usual
they were very good, and before leaving I caught a bit of Steve Beckett's
Warp set - that guy is pretty daring carrying his copy of MASK200 around so
that a half dozen people can jump around to Colonel Abrams!
We dropped our gear off back at the hotel, got some food in quickly (Tom
nearly making the mistake of trying to get friendly with a couple of
chicks-with-dicks but thankfully he took a closer look!) and we
discovered that the previous night's transport problems were nothing
compared
tonight! Having taken a taxi from the top of the Rambles, we abandoned it
half way down 30 minutes later and walked down to the Colon where we
abandoned the bus queue after a similar time (after meeting some German
people in the queue thanks to the girl's love of minimal sequinned bikinis)
and got a taxi (one thing you learn about Barcelona,
when taxis are scarce the prices quadruple!) to the Pavello de la Mar Bella
where we were overwhelmed by the queues to get in - one thing we did learn
is that Thursday is pretty quiet compared to Friday and Saturday when all
the
locals come out - and it took a mad crush for 20-30 minutes to get to the
entrance.
We went to catch the end of Chicks on Speed who sounded pretty awful, so
instead we caught the start of Autechre who were, well, Autechre, but we
were more concerned with Richie, as seemed to be most of Barcelona! Next we
bumped into Rolando and his crew - not the Aztec Mystics but some guys from
Barcelona whom we hung out with quite a bit!
Richie opened with Train Tracs amidst manic flashing light and smoke
erupting from all corners of the
stage - rather fitting as this was a long, fast journey he was
taking us all on! Full-on FTTMFF banging techno ensued, and whilst taking a
short rest I bumped into Steve who had met some Venezualan people and we
chilled out for a little before I caught the rest of Richie's set - totally
mindblowing as you'd expect and at the end the crowd were going wild (though
Richie told Dan shortly after that he thought he simply had done okay!!!!
Dan also learnt that not only had Jeff Mills replacements Slam had
cancelled, but Luke Slater had too, and Richie was going to stand in with a
double set!).
I flipped back and forth between Ratio delivering more hard techno in the
main arena and Kitbuilders giving us a mix of techno and electro outside,
before finally settling for the last main act in the arena, from Barcelona
Oscar Mulero and Angel Molina! If ever Richie Hawtin has come close to
being upstaged then these guys did it; they delivered a set so stripped back
yet so overwhelmingly full of hard beats nailed down to the most precise
millisecond that brand new shoes got worn out on the dancefloor and ears
were left smoking from blown minds...
Finally we left in the warm sunlight; I bumped into our Spanish friends who
claimed that Steve had flipped out, but shortly after I bumped into Steve
and he denied everything, though who knows as I was given a few knowing
glances when we all met up outside! Tom, Steve and I chilled out on the
beach (and waded in the warm Mediterranean) whilst the crowds dispersed,
then we caught a taxi back to our hotels for a well deserved rest - this was
probably the most scary taxi ride of our entire lives which was made a
little more pleasant through pharmaceuticals - riding the world's tallest,
steepest, fastest rollercoaster ride two weeks previously was a swan ride
compared to this trip where this taxi that must have been a couple of meters
wide managed to fit through a gap that would have shaved the sides off a
toothpick... The taxi driver had two horns - one which said "beep beep" and
one that said "I'm coming through whether you like it or not!!!!!"
The final day then and more insanity planned and as before, the previous day
was to be eclipsed ten fold!
Saturday afternoon was another late starter, but then it was to go on to 9am
Sunday morning in one hedonstic flash of pure techno bliss so it was a good
excuse to sleep late! Having wandered around and seen Chicks on Speed
doing a performance of eating (incredibly poor stuff and definitely
uninspired) I caught V/VM coming on late in the MACBA, lipsynching through
pig masks to Lionel Richie(?)s All Night Long over loud white noise as some
cat in the audience waved two of the meat bones similar to those that were
draped over their mixing desk in the air, and much more in a similar vein
ensued. It was amusing stuff though I can't help but I think the joke's
starting to wear a bit thin now... Back inside the CCCB Funk D'Void and
friends played a fine selection of techno and house with a fine funky edge
that had people up and dancing, and we were all oblivious to the fact that
Herbert's performance in the astro-turfed courtyard was to be responsible
for all raving not done with the feet for the rest of the festival!
Outside Tom was telling us that he's met Laurent Garnier who was playing a
secret show as Japanese DJ "Jamon", and we bumped into Greg who was with
Alicia from SF via Brighton and we all went for food and Sangria on La
Rambla - stopping to buy these cool rave lighters with flashing disco lights
inside - and amused ourselves with tales of drugs and British vs American
slang and so on. Tom discovered the best place up town to get hash is
across the road from the police station at the bottom of the Rambles - I
also got offered coke down there the next night, and I don't mean Coca Cola!
If you're looking next year there's a place on the left going down La Rambla
that opens out into a courtyard with fountains and stuff and the dealers sit
in the shadows there... and if you're after ecstasy its everywhere at SONAR
and is much cheaper than UK or USA and most locals have plenty of drugs on
them. I don't know how legal it is over there but you don't need to go
looking for it and there are no police on site and about 5 guys on security!
BTW, drinks are very expensive in the evening and you get through them very
fast so be warned - a bottle of water or a 250ml glass of beer costs 500pta
(2 quid or 3 bux) and a glass of Jack and Coke (coca cola) 1000pta... they
do however provide great value for money and ice is available all night
which keeps the drinks cold!
Finally at the evening venue we caught a bit of Delit-K with some breakbeats
and drum'n'bass and Madrid's Groof in the main hall with some fine electro,
before making for the dodgems over at the back to meet Steve's friend Filo
who was yet another one of the seemingly endless stream of beautiful Spanish
girls we met, plus her friends Kai (stunningly gorgeous again) and Sardio
(male, but I'm sure the ladies would instantly turn to jelly in his
presence). We all went in to dance to the sureshot sounds of Christian
Vogel which was rather cool. "You are crazy" Filo kept telling me and she
may just have been right! "Loco" I told her! I wandered off with more
lovely girls, Estella and Jodie, before returning for Richie's next set,
where he was even better than the previous night - this second night no one
was even going to come close! We met up with more people from our original
list - Bart Wolff from Holland and Ville from Finland, Juan Ramirez from
Barcelona, all genuine cats, and probably more people who I've rather rudely
forgot about! Somebody reported seeing the SONAR twins dressed to rave and
in blue and silver wigs and not looking like the promotional material where
they look like a scary pair of psychic twins though it seems a strange
thought! Carl Cox next, and the big man was definitely on form, but we
decided we'd check out Zombie Nation outside - who pretty much everyone we
met from Spain recommended to us, but they weren't as good as we expected.
We bumped into Tom and Steve's pal Richie who had just finished playing on
the main stage and all he wanted to do was play on the bumper cars which we
found rather amusing, so we all went on the dodgems, and we saw our
Venezualan friends again, and then I caught the rest of Carl Cox's set -
quite a set full of mind-blowing banging techno, though I don't reckon he'll
ever make it as a scratch DJ! And finally to end it all off more hard
techno from Oliver Ho, with a few moments every now and again to check out
Jamon's set of vintage Detroit techno in the blazing sunlight! We bumped
into our Spanish friends again and Greg joined the rest of us in declaring
Rolando's girlfriend Sila one of the most beautiful girls we had ever seen
(Greg had dust on his beard from his jaw dropping!)! Greg had to rush off
as he had a plane to catch immediately after, which was a tearful moment as
he's such a great guy, but the rest of us made it to the excellent end! It
was the best. SONAR! SONAR! SONAR!
We all met up outside and I wandered down to the beach with my 313 buddies,
only to find that by 9am it is packed with sun worshipping nudists, mainly
fat old geezers who are happy to be free from the tyranny of the raincoat,
though Tom (okay and myself and Steve) had moments when we reverted back to
14 years old at the sight of a pair of nude breasts! It was kind of a
surreal end to a brilliant festival!
Finally after nearly a couple of hours of relaxation we got a cab back home
with the intention of going out for a last night together in Barcelona the
next night. We met up again the next night and had a drink before getting a
cab to the week's bullfight - I wasn't too sure as I think its a little on
the tasteless side (as the cab driver also told us was the general consensus
in Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia and the spectacle was provided more
for tourists than locals)... But we missed it so we went up to Gaudi's
cathedral and ended up catching the end of a service in there. Its
definitely one of the most amazing buildings you'll ever see, though the new
parts seem to lack that spark of genius of Gaudi's contribution. After that
McDonald's (if you go to the middle of the jungle you will still find a
branch) and a metro to Catalunya where we found a small bar with the world's
worst music and the world's worst pool table (it had a map of Europe drawn
in beer on it) where we drank Absinthe and played pool (finding out later on
that there were duplicate balls on the table!) and then had a scout around
for La Casa in case some record shopping was in order the next day! We
never did find it, though we did find yet another jug of Sangria on La
Rambla (and I managed to replace the ravey lighter which I had given away to
the lovely Estella the previous night) and we bumped into Filo's friend
Lucina (it means "Lucifer" she had told Tom) who had found a giant robot
fighting game in the street - "cool trash, huh" she told us, and it was!, as
she lamented that tomorrow was work...
So finally more sad goodbyes :( but if the bastards let me have a visa we
may be hooking up at DMF! Those dudes from Detroit are totally fucking
cool! (*PLUG* And remember if you live in Detroit you have no excuse to be
missing the DJ Horsepower regular session at Foran's Irish Pub every
Wednesday, plus other selected Detroit venues too! *PLUG*)
Monday and Tuesday I finally had some time to wind down on my own and do
some art stuff like going up to Gaudi's park which is just the coolest place
in the world (so impressive I ended up taking over 400 photos!) and way
across town to the Joan Miro Foundation where there is a fine display of the
great man's work. I missed the Picasso museum (closed on Mondays so take
note) but there's plenty of little shops selling original works and signed
prints from Spanish artists like Miro, Dali and Picasso very cheap (prices
start under a 100 bux for signed prints) so there's a chance to see and even
buy when the museum is closed! I also found La Casa and its a great store!
I can't recommend this highly enough to anyone! Its the world's coolest
festival in the world's coolest city with the world's coolest people.
Anyone with a passing interest in electronic music or just plain hedonism is
stupid not to be there next year - I'm going to take as many as you as I can
fit into a shoebox in my case if I haven't done the sensible thing and moved
to Barcelona by then!
See you all there next year!
BABY DIDDY
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