“TWEENS, QUEENS, AND EVERY INBETWEEN”| CHARLI XCX BRINGS BRAT TO BARCELONA
Another June rolls in like a synth swell, and once again, Parc del Fòrum – part museum, part postmodern sci-fi port – morphs into Europe’s most kaleidoscopic playground. A record breaking 239,000 souls descended on Barcelona’s waterfront for Primavera Sound, and whether you came for the music, or the message, you left transformed.
This was my third time at Primavera – seasoned, but not cynical – and yet something this year shimmered brighter. Maybe it was the crowd, an electric sea of sequins, slogans, and queer joy, or maybe it was the triple-threat headline constellation: Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, and Chappell Roan, the three Powerpuff Girls, who arrived with pixie dust in their palms and left with history in their pockets.
BEABADOOBEE
First up on this Thursday late afternoon, Beabadoobee took to the Estrella Damm Stage, one of the two main stages. Short, sharp, and serotonin-laced, her set wasn’t designed to blow minds – it was there to seduce them. A prologue to something bigger. You could feel it: the crowd’s twitchy anticipation. Because what became a real moment – the moment at least for me – was just a stage stroll away.
CMAT
If you weren’t at CMAT’s golden hour gig, then you weren’t really at Primavera. That’s how mythologised it felt, even mid-set. The Cupra stage – a half-amphitheatre tucked into the waterfront, with its Grecian slope of bodies, felt like a queer colosseum – Irish flags waved proudly, chants of “Free Palestine” rippled through the air, and when Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson took to the stage, she looked genuinely spooked. “There’s a lot of ye,” she quipped, blinking through the sunset and nervously adjusted to it all.
But within minutes, CMAT transformed. What began as nerves quickly bloomed into something transcendent – part pop exorcism, part group therapy, part rodeo-rhinestoned fever dream. CMAT’s stage banter was equal parts razor-sharp and devastatingly sincere. She’s hilarious – genuinely, unpredictably funny –, laughing at a fan’s “I love sluts” T-shirt, and spinning an entire narrative about forgetting her bra on the plane. That moment led into one of the most powerful sequences of the night: drenched in water, white tee clinging, she stomped defiantly into “Take a Sexy Picture of Me” – a song written in response to online abuse about her appearance – and the audience howled in solidarity. Then came that dance: “The Woke Macarena,” a TikTok phenomenon, complete with the now-iconic “butcher and the baker” moves, sending thousands into synchronised motion.
There was the bit about Jamie Oliver – her niche nemesis – that fell hilariously flat outside the British Isles (you win some, you lose some).
Beneath the gags and the chaos, there’s a talent so rare it feels almost generational. She’s got that Amy Winehouse quality – the sort of raw, instinctive brilliance that doesn’t come from training.. A voice full of ache and irony. Lyrics that break your heart while making you laugh. During “Running/Planning,” a song about the exhausting pursuit of being ‘enough,’ she gave everything – straining each note toward the sorbet coloured sky. It was staggering. You could see people crying with the kind of catharsis usually reserved for breakups or baptisms. Pop doesn’t often feel holy, but this did.
Her finale? “I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby,” dragging a random fan onstage, cowboy hat in tow. It wasn’t polished, but it was perfect. “One of the best gigs of our lives is coming to an end,” she said, eyes glossy, “and it’ll live in my mind forever.” It wasn’t hyperbole. For those who witnessed it – and especially for anyone discovering her for the first time – this was one of those moments. The kind that crystallise into legend.
FKA TWIGS
After the high of CMAT, there was a hush. A reverence. The crowd shifted from chaos to ceremony in preparation for the queen of vulnerability herself: FKA Twigs. Many had wondered if she’d even make it – her Coachella cancellation still lingering. But when she emerged, it was clear: she was here, and she was feeling everything.
The show bled with precision and pain. Backing dancers – or more aptly, performance athletes – writhed, nude and contorted, from metal rigs like angels in purgatory. The setlist leaned into Eusexua, her newest sculpture, but it was moments from Magdalene and LP1 that shattered hearts. “Cellophane,” in particular, was less song and more séance. Clad in a beautiful red gown, after clinging to a stripper pole like it was the last honest thing in the world, Twigs delivered an emotional intensity so raw it made you wince. No pyros, no crowd-surfing – just a woman turning her body into poetry and asking us to witness. And we did, slack-jawed and spellbound.
JAMIE XX
We only caught the start of Jamie xx’s set at Cupra – enough time for a quick two-step and a serotonin top-up after being emotionally obliterated by Twigs. But that’s Jamie, isn’t it? The kind of set you could walk in and out of and still feel like you’ve spiritually been there. A warm-up, a palate cleanser, a gentle nudge back into your body.
KELLY LEE OWENS
The real detour was the walk over to The Schwarzkopf stage – one of Primavera’s smaller and newer stages – where Welsh electronic sorceress Kelly Lee Owens was mid-summoning. Owens isn’t one to yell for your attention. She is just somewhere between an ambient techno-princess and a clubland scientist, she was layering synths over glitchy percussion, building sound so carefully like she was carving ice. You couldn’t look away. She’s giving early Fred again energy – tiny silhouette on this stage, and somehow making the whole thing feel like you’ve just locked eyes in a bathroom at 4am and told her your darkest secret.
Since her self-titled debut in 2017, Owens has been building a universe. Supporting Depeche Mode in 2023 and signing to Dirty Hit’s electronic offshoot DH2 in 2024, she’s currently underrated, but not for long. Mark my words: within a year, she’ll be on the Glasto poster, just underneath someone like Peggy Gou, and we’ll all be smug that we caught her here, under a giant hair company brand sign. Tragically, due to schedule chaos her set clashed with the supposed headline moment of the weekend. Which meant a quick sprint – dodging discarded fans, glittery hot pants, and hyperventilating teens – back to the Estrella Damm stage for Charli XCX and Troye Sivan Present: Sweat.
CHARLI XCX AND TROYE SIVAN PRESENT: SWEAT
And make no mistake: this was the set people booked flights for. Tweens, queens, and every in-between – vibrating with slime green energy. Primavera went full brand synergy: BRATwursts being grilled, BRATnum ice creams melting, BRAT-green slathered across merch stands, outfits, walls, and maybe even souls.
Troye Sivan hit the stage just after 1am, and judging by the murmurs of confusion – “Wait, does Charli come on after this guy?” – not everyone got the memo that this was a duo. But even if some failed to clock it, Troye delivered. Choreography? Nailed. Vocals? Smooth as ever. “Got Me Started” had the crowd bouncing while he shrieked “IT’S MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY” into an auto-tuned mic, like a gay club prophet. The man served.
But it was always going to be Charli’s night. She stomped in like a bratty Beyoncé, ripping through a couple outfit changes. At one point, she was in a white bikini, half-humping the stage and yelling “God, I’m so drunk.” Icon behaviour.
And then — the Apple Girl moment. The cameras cut to the crowd, the lens catching a mess of curly, Rapunzel-esque hair, and the scream that followed could’ve cracked the Mediterranean. Chappell Roan had entered the room.
Together, Charli and Troye served a maximalist’s dream: a sweat-drenched, champagne-soaked, pop-operatic fever dream. Troye brought that breeze between Charli’s hot moments. They closed with “Talk Talk,” climbing all over each other like drunk Sims. The front rows reeked of Aperol, spilled champagne and something primal. It was messy. It was euphoric. It was brat.
After the final lights at Estrella Damm glitched out – we walked – no, staggered – toward Armand Van Helden. And apparently, so did FKA Twigs and The Dare, because within five minutes we’d had gorgeous encounters with both of them.
But first: Armand. Legend. And not in the word’s overused, TikTokified sense – but in the oh-my-god-he’s-playing-‘bonkers’-at-sunrise sense. Primavera’s always been a genre carousel, you’re deep in an emotional spiral with Twigs and later you’re two stepping your legs off to an Ibiza anthem surrounded by strangers and the ghost of Space Nightclub.
We perched at the top of the Cupra amphitheatre- a techno coliseum of dreams – while AVH tore through a 90-minute masterclass. My 18-year-old cousin, initially unsure, became obsessed. I, meanwhile, was back in my childhood bedroom, listening to my parents’ Ministry of Sound albums and pretending I had any idea what a rave was.
The set? Relentless. Banger after banger after banger: “Show Me Love,” “Music Sounds Better With You,” “Lola’s Theme,” and “My My My” – the latter of which triggered an unreal experience. “Barbra Streisand” sent us into ironic ecstasy, and “I Want Your Soul” made you remember that AVH doesn’t just DJ – he builds temples. By the time the sun was threatening to rise, I was already on Google trying to find where he’s playing next.
Then, because Primavera is an overstimulated fever dream, we wandered back toward The Dare. Charli’s name-drop king. Mr. “Send it to the Dare, yeah I think he’s with it.” The man delivered. Six-foot-something and bouncing around the stage, barking out songs about sex, perfume, and every kind of girl imaginable – short girls, tall girls, and girls with d*cks. It was messy. It was glorious.
By the time 6AM rolled around, we were limping,l all Estrella’d out, some dignity lost somewhere between “Lola’s Theme” and shouting “PERFUME!” with strangers at The Dare. We were euphoric, burnt out, and full of Spanish omelette.
And then… the journey home. The real headliner of Primavera: a 1.5-hour trek through public transport hell, with zero additional night buses and a metro that might as well not exist. Every year we moan. Every year Primavera ignores us. Every year we buy tickets again anyway.
Because honestly? Nights like this make the blisters and the hangover worth it.
