Rosalía, the universal Catalan of the moment, has been the great headliner, the one that attracted the greatest number of spectators and the one that has raised the most passions of the 21st edition of Primavera Sound in Barcelona, the festival of her city, to which she went as public not so long ago and where she dreamed of succeeding “like Grace Jones”.
“I used to come here to see concerts and get fine,” Rosalía recalled this morning from the top of the stage. “Here I saw Grace Jones and here I dreamed of being the headliner.”
A dream that has been surpassed by reality, because Rosalía has not only been the headliner of the last day of the festival, but of all of Primavera Sound, because none of the previous nights has the esplanade of the main stage been so full of people Like Saturday night.
Some 70,000 people, according to the organization, have entered the Parc de Fòrum on Saturday and practically all of them have gone to Rosalía’s concert at two in the morning, judging by the crowd that has gathered in the space
The first song that was played was “Saoko”, the same as all the concerts on the tour that began a year ago, but the happiness was not less than expected.
“Look! This is when she removes her make-up, she already did it at the Sant Jordi concert,” said a spectator, who already saw her in Barcelona at the start of the tour and could see her a thousand more times, because ‘motomami’ fever can be very high, almost as high as the meteoric career of this artist, who in her city many say they have seen perform when no one knew her, although not all are sincere.
Close to this spectator, two other ‘motomamis’ have come with their teenage ‘motodaughters’, an idea that a priori might seem unwise because a concert as massive as this one is not very accessible to people who have not yet finished growing up and cannot see, not even remotely, the stage.
But it has been a complete success, the girls have followed the singer’s movements on the giant screens in ecstasy, in a concert in which the live realization of the images is as important as the live performance itself.
The Spanish singer Rosalía during her presentation on the night of Saturday June 3, 2023 at the Primavera Sound Barcelona music festival, in Barcelona (Spain).
Like a year ago “Bizcochito”, “La Fama”, “La noche de anoche”, “Linda”, “Diablo”, “Despechá”, “Candy”, “Motomami”, “La combi versace”, “Malamente” and “With height.”
But the order of the songs has been different, the result of a long tour of America in which the Catalan has been perfecting, refining and modifying the show, and expanding the number of dancers, which a year ago was four and now there are eight.
After a heart-stopping hour, in which Rosalía has compressed energy, closeness, power and talent, the final stage of the concert has arrived, with “Chicken teruyaki”, “CUUUcuuuuuute” and a collective ecstasy.
“From one to ten, what grade do you give the concert?” ‘motomami’ asked as soon as Rosalía disappeared from the screens, “one hundred”, “motohija” answered without hesitation and with teary eyes,
In the same large cement esplanade lined with carpet where Rosalía made this girl cry with emotion, shortly before, the British DJ and producer Calvin Harris made the staff dance with his catchy, danceable electronic rhythms, and the virtuoso singer and guitarist St. Vicent has reviewed his 15-year career.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the venue, but also on a large stage, the Italians Maneskin have gathered thousands of followers of this band born from Italian ‘talent shows’ and Eurovision at dawn.
Also in the northern part of the Parc del Fòrum, but on a stage too small for her, the Dominican Tokhischa has broken all the rules and has been a success.
Endless, varied and intense, Primavera Sound has offered 317 concerts this week that have flooded Barcelona with music of all styles and formats, but the undisputed queen, the one who has won the “hundred”, has been Rosalía.