There were four of them, three blokes and one girl. The dudes, about in their mid-twenties, I’d say, were wearing the quintessential attire of what the Spanish refer to as a ‘guiri’
. At least when it’s hot out, this involves shorts, white tennis shoes, a summer shirt, and a satchel, or man purse, if you will, thrown across the torso. The girl was wearing a dress that looked like a very long baseball shirt. I think this was the first group of Brits I saw on my way to Primavera Sound 2022 in Barcelona. I was waiting for the tram that would take me to Parc del Fórum and they were the first people to join me on the platform. Little did I know then that in the festival I would see hundreds of thousands more, dressed exactly like that, all wanting to do more or less the same thing.
The same thing is drinking outdoors and seeing bands and music acts primarily from the English-speaking world. So, upon noticing mid-crowd at Tame Impala that most of the people around me seemed to be British, with the larger minorities being Irish, Scottish, American, and even some Australian, and the smaller minority, at least from my perspective, being Romance-speaking, I was very confused. Here I was at my first festival in Spain, after arriving from Mexico three months prior, and for the most part, I was speaking English. Every time somebody bumped into me, their apology was “sorry”. Every time somebody asked me for a light
, the inquiry came in the Queen’s. Most of the people I overheard or that I briefly befriended were English-speaking. It got to the point where, when I went to the bar, I wasn’t sure which language to use.
01:10 - 02:20h: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Escenario Binance
Saturday June 4th, *For this day I didn’t write down the stage times because I just winged the route.
Caroline Polacheck
Bauhaus
IDLES
DIIV
Beach House
With the exception of Manel, each one of those bands comes from one of the following countries:
United States
England
Australia
Ireland
Maybe it’s just my perception since, of those countries, I’ve only spent a good deal of time (and seen more than one city) in the US of A. But, I frequently see the tour announcements for these and other similar bands, for which I think it’s not an exaggeration to say that catching any of these acts is much easier in those places than in non-English speaking land.
Not only can you see them in one of the dozens of similar festivals (Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, Reading), but they frequently tour those places; in more cities. It makes sense because we’re talking of similar cultures, with a common tongue, which translates to more audience potential than would otherwise await these bands abroad.
Assuming that (emphasis on assuming), I can’t help but wonder; what are so many Brits doing coming to Barcelona to see these bands that they could easily see back home? Not that I don’t want them here. I was and will be delighted to chant along with them to the songs of many of my favorite groups.
One of my favorite memories of the festival was being at the mosh pit during Fontaines DC and singing ‘Boys in The Better Land’, at times embracing, at times pushing, a bunch of sweaty folks that at least for those minutes very well could be my best mates, and who I can assume, based on their accents and attire, hailed from somewhere in the UK.
That moment, in particular, felt good, partly because it felt like being immersed in a different culture. I didn’t feel like I was in Barcelona surrounded by Catalans, or in a cantina surrounded by Mexicans, but I also didn’t feel like I was somewhere in Barcelona surrounded by people from somewhere in the UK. For a moment, I actually felt like I was at a pub deep in the Irish countryside, surrounded by Irish men and women that would chant “Fuck the Queen! Fuck the Queen!”
I don’t mean any of this as a complaint. That is precisely, or so the line goes, where a big part of Primavera’s attractiveness lies. You can see an act of a certain microcosm in the music world, and then, only a few meters away, another artist, from a seemingly completely different world.
I would say that that’s true of a number of festivals across the world. Maybe Primavera invented the modern version of that, maybe not. What I could say is that this edition seemed to be no exception for that kind of ambition. Before Fontaines DC, at the closest stage, I was joined by thousands of strangers in enjoying Manel’s show. Manel are kind of the Catalan pop band by excellence right now. If you google “catalan pop band”, at least from Spain, they’re usually the first result that pops up.
That being said, I didn’t feel like many of the Brits in the crowd were there to see Manel. Rather, they were waiting to see Fontaines DC. This brings us to the original question. If seeing bands like that and King Gizzard and whatnot is a more common occurrence back in the UK, and assuming that most of them were tourists and not immigrants, why come all the way to Barcelona for this? I mean, it’s an amazing city, but to come here to see bands that you could see elsewhere, isn’t it a bit of a waste?
Well, first I thought of mere budgeting constraints. Most people assume that Spain is cheaper than the UK. However, it turns out Primavera Sound is one of the most expensive festivals that you can go to in Europe.
Let’s take Glastonbury as an example. In this festival, there is no VIP version or multiple weekends (although that’s something that Primavera did only for this last edition); so there is only one type of ticket. You typically pay £280 plus £5 for a service fee. According to their website in August 2022, this includes access to all five days of the festival (3,000 acts in 100+ stages), free firewood, and support for organizations like Oxfam, Greenpeace, and WaterAid.
At Primavera Sound, one weekend is €245 for a normal entrance and €450 for the VIP. This includes the events they make throughout the city during 1 week only, and something called “Brunch on the Beach”, but all this is with a limited capacity.
So it can be cheaper, but also not, depending on what you buy. So what else? Is it the city? I guess it’s a reasonable excuse. Come for a week, go to a pretty cool festival but also go see the Sagrada Familia, bask in the sun, drink beer that’s cheaper than what you get at home, try some of that delicious Spanish food and connect with a bunch of people from all over the world doing more or less the same thing.
Sounds nice, especially if you consider what the average British festival goer makes compared to the Spanish one. The median annual salary in London, for instance, is £39,716 pounds, or like €43,969. The median annual salary in Barcelona, just to compare the most expensive city in both economies, is €27,483. We could also look at comparisons like the unemployment rate of the two countries or what some call “the brain drain”, but that would get us a bit off subject.
Instead, beyond the merely economic, there is also the weather. Glastonbury, to stick with that comparison, is notorious for turning into a mud bath. In Barcelona, around June, the weather is beachin’ (pun intended, sorry). This is a phenomenon that The Guardian reported on as far back as nine years ago, remarking that bookings were up by 30% that year for “events abroad where fans can pay less to see the same bands”.
Having found that the answer to why there are so many Brits at Primavera Sound is somewhat obvious if you think about it, I’d like to say once again that this is not yet another complaint about British people in other parts of Europe. Researching a bit before writing this, I came across online forums at places such as Reddit that were peppered with complaints about their behavior at the festival. I also found older articles on the matter. Vice, for instance, went as far as to publish A Brit’s Guide to not being a bin at Primavera Sound. In spite of this, I only have good things to say about the vast majority of British people I interacted with during the festival.
At King Gizzard, somebody stole my phone. Right as the band was about to do a breakdown, some piece of shit among the crowd reached into my front pocket while I was about to throw myself into the mosh pit. I pressed with my right hand and felt the phone being wrestled for a second and falling to the ground, bouncing off my leg. Then, the mosh pit was in full swing and somebody pushed me. I turned around, somebody pushed me again. By the time I could look back, it was useless, I couldn’t see anybody among the sea of people that looked like they might’ve done it. So, I don’t know where this person, or the person who found the phone, was from. What I do know is that for the brief moments when I was frantically looking for my phone on the ground of the mosh pit and the adjacent area from which I had joined, albeit hopelessly, a British guy noticed this and asked me— everything all right, mate?—. He and his buddies helped me search for a few seconds, trying to stop people from bouncing over the floor patch where I was looking, but it was pointless. When I eventually gave up, considered the phone lost, and rushed home to change all my passwords, I thanked the bloke and his mates. As I was leaving, he gave me a pat on the back and wished me luck.
The next day I went back, with a new phone, and as the night fell upon us I saw Bauhaus perform. Since I’m not that big of a fan, I didn’t want to go very deep into the crowd. Instead, I found a wall at the sidelines from which you could sit and get a pretty good view. The person sitting next to me turned out to be another brit, this one about 50 years of age, James.
James was wearing a black suit and dark wayfarers although it was evening by now. He was singing along to every song and knew every lyric. The moment the concert was over, I guess he couldn’t help but yelp out loud— That was fucking great!—. Although I was well aware that he didn’t say it to me, I said that I agreed. We chatted a bit as people were leaving and he told me that he had traveled to Primavera specifically to see Bauhaus since that was his best friend’s favorite band, and his best friend was dead. He didn’t seem very sad about it. Quite the opposite, he said he was happy that he was doing this sort of homage to him and that, unlike him, he was alive. We discussed the setlist briefly and I told him that, in my opinion, they should’ve played “All We Ever Wanted Was Everything”. At first, he wasn’t sure which song I meant, so he started singing, and I joined in, and we ended up signing the first verse in unison.
In retrospect, I think it’s obvious that Primavera Sound is aimed, in large measure, at this sort of audience. Of course, there are people that aren’t delighted with the fact that 65% of the event attendees are foreigners. Does that make it inaccessible to a large percentage of the local population? Maybe. Would those locals go if the price was lower but the lineup was the same? I don’t know. And if the lineup were to change to fit the local taste, would it have the same international appeal? Would that still be profitable for the festival?
I can’t answer that, but it does bring to mind another person that I met at the festival, who happened to be Mexican as well, Jaime. He and his friends had tickets for Primavera Sound since 2020 and had crossed the Atlantic only for this. I talked a bit to Jaime when he was alone waiting for the black midi concert to begin since his friends were reportedly too tired to keep at it (it was 3 in the morning). I knew from this brief conversation that he lived in Mexico City and, at least then, worked at a call center. In part because of the pandemic, he was able to work remotely for a while, while traveling, in something that sounded like telecommunications. If we go by the average again, we would now look at the median salary of a call center employee in Mexico City, perhaps in the technical support field, and looking at Indeed data, we could infer that Jaime was making around $57,600 - $128,000 MXN, or €2,832 - €6,291 per annum, at least at the time of his trip.
I don’t know much more about his situation, but the contrast, albeit very speculative, is flat-out brutal to me. Granted, it’s not the fairest of comparisons; if we consider the cost of living in Mexico to that of broader Europe, but also how unequal my country is compared to the other two. Maybe Jaime is way above the average, maybe not. Regardless, I decided to mention it here because I still find the fact of him and his friends, running around the festival, having a blast, rushing from one concert to another, rather impressive. From him and his friends, with whom I was able to speak a couple more times, I didn’t hear any complaints about the corporate nature of the festival or how international it was, or how many Brits were there. I guess, therefore, that to Jaime and his friends, going to Primavera Sound was well worth it. They knew what it cost and decided to pay for it. To the place that housed them and the restaurants where they ate, I imagine that those euros converted from Mexican pesos were welcomed as well.
*The names of the people mentioned have been altered.
A typically pejorative term referring to ill-refined and bad-mannered tourists, typically from the UK, but applied with frequency to those from any country in northern Europe. It’s not always an insult, but it’s not positive. In my estimation, and as someone only recently introduced to the term, “guiri” seems to be representative of a general attitude towards foreigners from such nations that I find quite perplexing, and which we can discuss some other time.
For reasons that I’m not sure of, most of the bartenders at Primavera are Portuguese youths, so I soon realized it was easier to speak to them in English than it was in Spanish.
