Primavera Day one

I'm not normally the sort of person who would go to a music festival alone but the line-up for Primavera was so good I just had to go. I couldn't live with myself if I was in a city where Shellac was playing and I didn't make an effort to see them.

I headed to the festival site on the Thursday after giving my talk at the European Stroke Conference. The Primavera site is the Parc Del Forum on the coast. It was built for a large festival about 6 or 7 years back and it's basically a brilliant music festival venue. There are several amphitheatres that are perfect for open air shows and tarmacked ground that does not turn into a swamp at the first sniff of rain.

I decided to be almost psychotically sociable and tried to talk to anyone who spoke English. My friendly advances were knocked back a few times until I bumped into a bloke wearing a Hearts shirt who was recording the Fall. I hung out with him and his friends for the rest of the evening.

I last saw the Fall in 1994 at the Phoenix festival. They were playing from the infotainment scam back then and I loved it. 'paranoid man masturbates while listening to pearl jam in cheap shit apartment room'. Poetry. This time I didn't recognise much of the material but I enjoyed it just as much. I was pleased when they played their cover of Strychnine by the sonics. Proper garage rock. I look forward to hearing the tape.

Superchunk were OK in a sort of bouncey grunge pop way. I like them but I don't love them. Geraldo, a mexican bloke who knew the hearts fan, was more into them and said it was a good set (PS - Geraldo, if you read this message me in the comments section)

I watched broken social scene next. I own two of their albums but I had never really listened to them. It's a side effect of being a doctor. You have money that you spend on shit that you never manage to enjoy. Their set was OK but the feeling wasn't really there when I listened to the CDs at home in Glasgow. I should probably give them another spin.

Finally I watched pavement. I last saw pavement in 1998 at the Barrowlands in Glasgow just before they split up. They weren't very good back then possibly because of intraband bad vibes. This time they were much better. They seemed to be positively cheery and they bounced about the stage in a good way broadcasting their sunkissed fall-inspired tunes. I sung my heart out and tried to ignore the obese Spainiard who was attempting to initiate violent sexual congress with the rest of the crowd. He was either pogoing or moshing, I couldn't tell. I resisted the urge to twat him.

Day one was great and it got better