The grace of surprises is to keep the intrigue of the surprised until the moment it is revealed. That’s why the story uploaded at around 6:30 p.m. on Olivia Rodrigo’s Instagram account was something like finding the Epiphany presents in a closet on January 5.
Broken the effect of the first impression, with the esplanade in front of the Occident packed from long before 22:25, the American has planted itself in the Primavera Sound just a month after another secret performance in Barcelona, on that occasion held at the Grec to bless the union between Barça and Spotify at the gates of the classic that decided the league.
Thus, what Gabi Ruiz, director of the festival, described a few days ago as a Haaland, alluding to the promise of Real Madrid presidential candidate Enrique Riquelme, turned out to be Rodrigo, who in less than a week will release ‘You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love’, his third studio work.
The set, which barely lasted three quarters of an hour, kicked off with ‘Bad Idea Right?’ and ‘Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl’, two cuts that provided the maximum dose of noise that a teenage pop star can offer on stage.
However, the rock lucubrations of the beginning quickly met with a much poppier beta, crystallized in ‘Vampire’, the first moment of collective prayer of the night.
The youthful delirium that usually takes over Olivia Rodrigo’s shows today was almost imperceptible, perhaps because the 71,000 attendees who came to Primavera this Saturday were thinking more about the rawness of My Bloody Valentine or the electronic brilliance of The xx than the pop purity of the American celebrity.
That’s why their presence continues to cement Primavera’s path towards a pop festival of the first magnitude, which has already seen names like Addison Rae, this Friday, Sabrina Carpenter or Lana del Rey, while the hope that one day Taylor Swift, the queen of the whole thing, will play is still present.
Back in music, Rodrigo teased the imminent ‘You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love’ with ‘Drop Dead’ and ‘The Cure’, two previously released previews, before delivering Barcelona ‘What’s Wrong with Me’, a never-before-sung treat joined by The Cure frontman Robert Smith.
The track, which has something of those redemptive songs by Taylor Swift, shows how Primavera Sound is the point of union of 50 years of popular music, today materialized in a beautiful ballad defended by the vocal elasticity of Rodrigo and the exceptional form of Smith.
In fact, the fact that it was Rodrigo who agreed to perform in Barcelona, once the line-up was already closed, speaks of the dimensions of Primavera, which, with a stellar program and 287,000 attendees, can look Coachellas and Glastonburys in the face without complexes.
At the end of the concert, the American has finished softening and igniting the Parc del Fòrum with ‘Deja Vu’, the shuddering collective roar of ‘All-American Bitch’ and the redemptive ‘Good 4 U’.
According to Agencia EFE, we will have to wait until next May to see Rodrigo again in these lands, when he will perform four nights at the Palau Sant Jordi to show, in its entirety, ‘You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love’.
Find out more at ‘QueOnnda.com’.
