"Meet you at the Powerpuff Girls!"
"… where?"
As fans wandered into Barcelona's Parc del Fòrum for each day of Primavera Sound 2025, they were greeted by a giant sculpture of the Powerpuff Girls — a fact of which I was unaware when my friend texted me the first night for a meet-up spot. It made sense in the general context of Primavera — animated, colourful, cult-y, fun — but even more this year, as they symbolized the festival's 2025 headliners: Charli XCX (Buttercup, in brat green, even), Sabrina Carpenter (Bubbles) and Chappell Roan (Blossom).
Primavera had outdone itself with this headlining trio: with the Eras Tour ending in 2024 (and brat summer flowing into this summer, too), you'd be hard-pressed to name more zeitgeist-y artists, save perhaps Doechii. Their presence loomed over this year's festival, making the usual schedule-clashing decisions even harder than the festival's previous iterations. I've never made more pained decisions: DJ Koze or FKA twigs? See Kelly Lee Owens, and risk not finding my friends for Charli? LCD Soundsystem, who I've seen before, or new fave Confidence Man?
As with last year's festival, I tried to see as much of the city as I could, but with festival nights going until 6 a.m., Primavera promises a busy schedule.
As usual, the fest eased in with a Wednesday (June 4) evening show, this time highlighted by Hamilton's own Caribou. Dan Snaith and co. were a perfect introduction to the fest, getting people dancing up by night's only stage, and even behind the sound booth at the back, where fans danced around speakers, unbothered by not seeing the band. They missed the psychedelic visuals, but they could hear the songs brought to life vibrantly by Snaith's meticulous players: "Odessa," "Broke My Heart," "Honey" and perfect set-closer "Can't Do Without You."
Photo: Caribou by Christian Bertrand
My Thursday (June 5) began with beabadoobee at around 7:30, where she played a set of likeable songs from her latest record, This Is How Tomorrow Moves. Her crunchy pop songs (especially "Take a Bite") had just the right shade of grunge to them. I urged my friends to take a chance on DJ Python afterwards, wondering whether his DJ set would sound like his softer, trip-hoppy EP from earlier this year or be more upbeat. The answer was the latter; the bass was literally face-shaking as he provided a perfect dance mix that seemed to get bassier as the sun set for the night ahead.
FKA twigs played the first of the festival's headline-worthy sets, commanding a beguiled main stage crowd that held onto her every word, from an opening salvo of EUSEXUA club jams ("Perfect Stranger," "Girl Feels Good") all the way back to EP2 songs ("Water Me"). Through her set, the aesthetics changed from "industrial sex dungeon" to diaphanous and delicate, with her dancers providing energy and elegance (and swords!), and changing moods with her: their clockwork choreography gave Madonna and Game of Thrones with equal effectiveness.
Photo: FKA twigs by Clara Orozco
Up next, Jamie xx gave a likeable if perfunctory set from his underrated In Waves. As usual, he teased "Gosh" effectively throughout, but his set never seemed to capture the full breadth of his creativity. The nifty tweaks and transitions that typically mark his sets was missing on the night, making the end parade of usual hits — "Loud Places," "All You Children," "Life" and "Baddy on the Floor" — to do the lifting.
The crowd got unruly (and, with nary a drop of 4G to be found, we lost track of most of our friends — a hard lesson learned) as Angels floated in for Charli XCX's headlining set. Her Sweat Tour set with Troye Sivan, and her second Primavera set in as many years, provided an early fest highlight. Even if, you know what to expect from her by now — a blistering set of brat bangers with "Unlock It (Lock It)," "Speed Drive," "Vroom Vroom" and "Track 10" — it shows how ageless her 2024 album is that your favourite track keeps changing with each performance (this time: "Sympathy is a knife").
Troye Sivan was obviously the guest here — check the big green drapes — but he's amassed a series of hits that had the Prima crowd bouncing in-between, especially to "What's the Time Where You Are?", "Rush" and all-timer "Dance to This".
By the set's end, we were drained and, deciding to conserve our energy for two long days ahead, headed home.
Photo: Charli XCX by Henry Redcliffe
Our Friday (June 6), the hottest day of the festival, we arrived just in time to catch the latter half of Waxahatchee's set at the bowl-shaped CUPRA Pulse Stage, where Katie Crutchfield played timeless songs from her latest album, Tigers Blood, that sounded sunburnt and twangy in the hot sun. Then, we wandered over to catch Wolf Alice splice "Seven Nation Army" and Sabbath's "Iron Man" into their own "Giant Peach" before ending with their singular pop hit, crowd sing-along "Don't Delete the Kisses."
Photo: Waxahatchee by Gisela Jane
As the sun set, HAIM played a no-concession set at the Revolut Stage that mixed hits and indulgence: between kicking off with "The Wire" and finishing with singles like "Want You Back" and "Summer Girl," they lingered on jammy instrumental interludes that would have gone down better if their stage banter hadn't felt quite so hackneyed and sycophantic ("Wow, this is a sexy crowd!").
When they ended, Beach House took over on the Estrella Damm Stage, providing a vibe-y, hypnotic transition into the evening with a slew of hypnotic hits — "Lazuli," "Once Twice Melody" and "Silver Soul." Before they ended, we snuck away to see Fcukers play a high-energy set at the tucked-away Trainline stage, but with a promise to friends to get back for Sabrina Carpenter's headline set, we were forced to leave during their best song, "Bon Bon."
Sabrina Carpenter is my least favourite of the three headliners — her polished pop songs, though funny and full of personality, feel like they're missing the messy humanity inherent to Charli and Chappell's songs. Yet, that polish is her greatest asset live: onstage at Prima, where she brought her full-budget stage show, commanding the audience's full attention with captivating stage presence, her great voice, and a general good time. "Taste" and "Bed Chem" — which featured Ginuwine's "Pony" rolled into it — provided early highlights, as did a pitch-perfect cover of "It's Raining Men," but it was "Espresso," a song I thought I had tired of, that provided the best moment of the day. You forget what a song like that can do to make a crowd of strangers feel like a community.
Photo: Sabrina Carpenter by Sharon Lopez
After its thrilling finale, we tried to catch some of Wet Leg, but as their popularity surpassed CUPRA's confines, we split our time between witchhouse legends SALEM, whose larger-than-life sound remained as thrilling in 2025 as it did in 2010, and Floating Points, whose 2024 album Cascade sounded as robust and visceral live as on record.
We finished the night (morning?) with Danny L Harle's live set, which was perfectly calibrated for a 5 a.m. crowd, peaking with a remix of DJ Sammy and Yanou's "Heaven."
The last day of Primavera is always the hardest — I'd done between 20,000 and 30,000 steps per day so far, and sleep has a way of catching up with you — but with Chappell just ahead, and just 12 hours until we had to be at the airport, we congregated for Fontaines D.C. at the Revolut Stage. I'd underestimated the Irish post-punk band until their incredible fourth album, Romance, turned me back onto them, but their Primavera set was sadly just okay. Singer Grian Chatten was pitchy at times, and the vibrant highlights — "Here's the Thing" and the dynamic "In the Modern World." particularly — seemed to underline how dour the rest of their performance was. The band closed strongly with "Starburster," though, and a proud message of hope and solidarity up on the screens: "Israel is committing genocide / Use your voice."
And then, just as the sun set: Chappell Roan. The Midwestern Princess showed, from the long, dramatic medieval intro to her set to the extended closing of "Pink Pony Club," the powerful performance chops of a veteran, bringing together the biggest crowd of the festival with songs that already feel like classics. In my notes for this review, cobbled together as the show progressed, I breathlessly declared each new song the highlight of Primavera: "Femininomenon"; no, sorry, "Red Wine Supernova"; actually, "Good Luck, Babe!" Even "The Giver," introduced by Roan pulling horror stories from a red helmet about exes, crowd-sourced from Instagram before the show ("He only knew how to use his fingers to play video games!"; "He didn't wash his balls"; "Hooked up with my mom, and they are all in the crowd tonight!") sounded like a honky-tonk classic.
But it was "Pink Pony Club" — whose writing, per Chappell Roan lore, tells both her origin story and marks the moment she knew she had reached a new level of songwriting — provided the true Primavera Sound 2025 highlight. In 20 years of going to shows and festivals, I have rarely seen such joyous abandon, heard a song sound so momentous, felt like "Pink Pony Club" felt. She wrote the next day on Instagram that she was "on the verge of tears multiple times on stage," that she would "never forget this" — nor will anyone else there.
Photo: Chappell Roan by Clara Orozco
Yet there were highlights to come. Unable to get into Ecuadorian DJ Nicola Cruz's packed DJ set nearby, we opted to see American rapper Aminé, who was a perfect showman for the length of his inviting set, coaxing the crowd to dance to his West Coast hip-pop gems. He knew his audience: his batch of new UK converts absolutely devoured "Spice Girl."
In one of the most difficult decisions of the festival — LCD Soundsystem or Australian Euro-pop outfit Confidence Man — our group split down the middle; having seen LCD twice in the past two years, I opted for the latter, and loved every second of their sexed-up, coked-out set, which felt illicit it was so much fun. Singer Janet Planet's cone bra lit up as she and co-frontman Sugar Bones bounced around onstage, making the Amazon Music stage feel like an after-hours club.
This year's Primavera was lighter on heavy music, but Turnstile got a mosh pit churning at their 3 a.m. set, kicking off with the eponymous single from their new album, NEVER ENOUGH. Hardcore is often a sweaty basement affair, but Turnstile's expansive sound was perfect for the muggy Barcelona air, where they blazed through a set of highlights from that and their 2021 breakout, GLOW ON: "ENDLESS," "I CARE," "HOLIDAY," "ALIEN LOVE CALL," "MYSTERY," "BLACKOUT," "SEEIN' STARS" and "BIRDS." It was an outlier in the most pop-centric Primavera lineup perhaps ever, but a perfect reminder that the festival's eclecticism has always been its strongpoint.
Photo: Gisela Jane
Ever gluttons for punishment — and knowing it wouldn't be Primavera Sound without a final set as the sun rose on Sunday morning — we returned to the CUPRA Pulse Stage to let Danny L Harle, this time DJing, send us off into the morning air… and, not long after, the airport.