The universe is actively trying to ban me from live music: Primavera Sound Barcelona 2026 (Day 01 - Thursday 4 June)
LIVE REVIEWS
Mateusz Niesmialek
6/5/2026
I am now officially convinced the universe is actively trying to ban me from live music.
Getting hand, foot and mouth disease right before Coachella was a warning shot. Showing up to Primavera Sound with strep throat is just cyberbullying from God. But, I'm not here to moan about my immune system, which has, at this point, essentially handed in its notice. We need to talk about the global festival circuit's complete inability to handle extreme weather.
Back in April, I stood in the Coachella Valley watching Day 1 collapse in real time. 65 km/h winds. The DoLaB stage shut down after a piece of rigging dropped on someone's head. Then the main screens announced that Anyma's much-anticipated ÆDEN premiere was cancelled.
Fast forward to Thursday at Parc del Fòrum. The Catalan weather gods looked at Coachella's wind situation and raised it a biblical downpour. It wiped out an entire night of headliners.
Primavera Sound Barcelona (Photo Credit: Christian Bertrand)
Primavera Sound Barcelona (Photo Credit: Sergio Albert)
As someone who builds communication strategies for a living, watching Primavera's crisis comms unfold in real time caused me genuine physical discomfort. When you have tens of thousands of people stranded on concrete in a storm, communication is a basic safety requirement. The internet has been absolutely tearing the festival apart today. The crowd looked miserable. The staff looked just as frozen. If standard heavy rain causes this much panic, I dread to think what happens in an actual severe weather event.
Word eventually trickled out through social channels about the lineup casualties. Alex G was first to get the axe at 8:50 pm. The festival cited 80 km/h gusts on the Revolut stage. Less than an hour later, Mac DeMarco's slot was scrapped because it was physically impossible for his crew to set up in the downpour.
LaBlackie (Photo Credit: Gisela Jane)
Then the dominoes started falling properly. They locked down the main stage area at the exact moment our group split up for a tactical toilet run. Barricades up. Security shut the section. We were completely cut off from each other. In a desperate, freezing attempt to guide my partner back through the chaos, I resorted to screaming 'Vanish Into You' by Lady Gaga at the top of my lungs alongside some equally unhinged strangers. The impromptu serenade did not work. Obviously. What did work was abandoning any pretence of romance and trudging to a pre-agreed food truck like wet, defeated penguins.
By this point our clothes were so comprehensively soaked that we were genuinely delighted to be forced into buying festival merchandise just to survive. A premium-priced hoodie has never felt so necessary. Outstanding guerrilla marketing, Primavera, honestly. Create an inescapable monsoon, freeze your attendees, and watch the merch tents sell out in minutes.
2hollis (Photo Credit: Pamies Garcia)
Before the absolute worst of it, there were a few bright spots. I caught Barcelona's own LaBlackie on the Schwarzkopf stage. She brought this raw, almost combative intensity - exactly why she's been dominating the Catalan rap scene. Then there was 2hollis, who brought a kind of frantic digital energy that somehow matched perfectly with the weather building overhead. He threw himself into it, and the crowd absolutely ate it up.
Blood Orange saved the early evening. Dev Hynes stepped out and delivered a set so effortlessly tight it nearly made you forget your shoes were filling with water. Pure groove. A brief, merciful distraction from the impending meteorological catastrophe. And Father John Misty? The man just delivered. No excuses, no hedging. He stood there while the sky fell in and played a fantastic set. A proper professional.
Father John Misty (Photo Credit: Clara Orozco)
But the peak of absurdity was still to come at the main stage.
Primavera put out official information that the headliners were delayed, not cancelled. So around midnight we made our way back. Security still had the arena closed off. We just stood there. Freezing. Me nursing a strep throat I had no business ignoring. Doja Cat was supposed to take the Revolut stage at 11:30 pm, with Massive Attack's newly delayed slot pushed to 12:30 am. What the waiting crowd got instead was a view of stagehands desperately sweeping water off the stage with brooms. It was like watching someone try to empty the ocean with a mop.
It was during this midnight waiting game that I have to pay tribute to our dear friend, Gosia. The weather broke her. At some point her internal thermometer just gave up completely. She locked up, shaking violently, standing there repeating "I feel a little bit cold" on a continuous, haunted loop. She spent the remainder of the lockdown terrifying everyone in the press section like a drenched Samara Morgan crawling out of the well in The Ring.
Massive Attack (Photo Credit: Mateusz Niesmialek)
More rain on the horizon. Did Massive Attack play? Obviously not. After stringing everyone along for an agonising stretch, the organisers finally pulled the plug. Doja Cat, Massive Attack, eventually Bad Gyal - all wiped.
For those of us who stuck around after the headliner bloodbath, there were a few late-night lifelines. I caught TV Girl, whose set felt like a cynical art-pop cryptogram. They lured the crowd in with hazy indie pop then deliberately messed with time signatures and dropped abrupt endings. An intentional, sarcastic joke on the whole industry, and standing in the freezing rain, the irony landed perfectly.
TV Girl (Photo Credit: Christian Bertrand)
If you made it to the early hours, your reward was ¥ØUUK€ ¥UK1MATU. The Japanese DJ is notorious for unhinged, shirtless Boiler Room sets, and he brought exactly that chaotic energy to the Cupra stage. Throwing down some of the hardest techno imaginable, then abruptly cutting the track to drop early-2000s nu-metal. Nonsensical. Jarring. Absolutely brilliant. Exactly the assault on the senses you need to stave off hypothermia at 3 am.
¥ØUUK€ ¥UK1MATU (Photo Credit: Sergio Albert)
Look, the organisers don't control the weather. When safety is on the line, no concert takes priority. The 80 km/h gusts were no joke. But there are festivals all over Europe that sustain rain without shutting down entirely. Here, it felt like the organisation was desperately faking normality until it legally couldn't anymore. With European summers doing what they are doing now, this is not a one-off. It is a preview. The infrastructure needs to catch up before the next one arrives.
Tomorrow is another day. The forecast is clear. The shoes are still wet. See you at Parc del Fòrum.
Primavera Sound Barcelona 2025 (Photo Credit: Rayban Paco)