Sónar 2024 – 15 June 2024 (Barcelona)

After two days in which Olof Dreijer with Diva Cruz and Ela Minus emerged as the clear winners, Sónar 2024 came to a close with a final day that included Paul Kalkbrenner, Vince Staples and Tommy Cash.

Paul Kalkbrenner, Sónar 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

The day kicked off with a set from the UK’s Loraine James in the Sónar Hall. A dense show in which drill and grime were the dominant styles, but in which we also enjoyed some quieter passages that could well be framed within an experimental R&B style. The truth is that the “heavy” nature of her show was a little hard for us at that time of the evening, so we went to the main stage to enjoy the horsegiirL, who did not disappoint with a fun session where you can find hardcore, pop or a version of Gwen Stefani as if she were the Smurfs.… It’s true that all the paraphernalia and videos behind this show make the caricature outweigh a show that makes you dance and enjoy a little guilty pleasure, but it’s also true that during the day everyone asked if you’d seen the show with the girl in the horse mask…

horsegiirL, Sónar 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

Similarly, Tommy Cash will return to the Catalan festival after his eclectic concert at Sonar Hall in 2017 or in the evening in 2022. With a much more balanced setlist that included songs like “X-RAY“, “Heartbass“, “Tango” or the accelerated “Who” in the first 30 minutes, the Estonian did not stop urging the audience to do pogos, dances or anything else that came to his mind, which he did on the first occasions, but became tiresome for an audience that ended up ignoring him after 30 minutes… By the way, some of us in the press have already lost the bet that she will represent her country at Eurovision in less than 5 years. .

Tommy Cash, Sónar 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos SantaféforIndieofilo^©

A few metres away, in Sónar Park, the TORO collective, accompanied by dancers, unleashed a mini rave based on tracks with little connection or link between them, deliberately provoking the audience to make an extra effort to join in with the proposal of the duo made up of Softchaos and Engalananan. Like most of the crowd, we headed for the main stage as the Kittin and Vunk b2b approached, where the Frenchwoman and the Dutchman played a sublime techno session.

Kittin and David Vunk, Sónar 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

However, our red marked slot on the schedule was hardcore Gabber Eleganza and his “The Hakke Show” at Sonar Park. For someone who has lived in the Netherlands and hallucinated about some hardcore parties in the land of tulips and the devotion that 40-somethings still have for the style, the show with dancers from the Italian Alberto Guerrini was like going back to one of the Thunderdome parties (logo that had a dancer on its chest, by the way…). Fast BPMs and bass tracks to unleash the madness (and the consumption of chemical drugs) in a pavilion where the temperature seemed to rise by leaps and bounds. After 20 minutes our brains said enough and we set off for Sonar at night…

Gabber Eleganza, Sónar 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

There we would meet Paul Kalkbrenner, who would show us a bit of the evolution of the festival over the years. Accustomed to seeing him in the early hours of the morning, his privileged position and the fact that he almost opened the main stage served to confirm the organisation’s commitment to danceable rhythms from the first second of the night,, leaving behind years of not-so-electronic acts such as Madness, Duran Duran, Gorillaz or Lana Del Rey herself…With a show that did not differ much from his previous appearances, and accompanied by his now classic audiovisuals that focus almost exclusively on capturing his performance with various slowed down cameras, the German focused on offering more songs with a vocal presence than usual, which was quickly supported by the audience who never stopped singing the choruses of his songs, especially a remix of ‘White Rabbit‘.

Paul Kalkbrenner, Sónar 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

The non-electronic bet of the night was American Vince Staples, who arrived in Barcelona just weeks after the release of his sixth studio album, Dark Times (2024). With only himself on stage and at a dizzying pace, the Californian gave a sober concert that kept us enthralled thanks to his rhythm and the clarity of his lyrics, which moved from the banal to the social with astonishing speed, at times reminding us of Little Simz’s excellent concert at the 2023 edition. Among his new songs, ‘Black&Blue‘ and ‘Government Cheese‘ stood out, before closing his show with the memorable ‘Big Fish‘, which was sung in unison by a large section of the audience.

Gabber Eleganza, Sónar 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

With our strength running low, our last show of this edition was to be for the local LaFrancesssa at SonarCar. After a somewhat sluggish first half of the show, with the artist mostly behind the mixing desk, she gradually opened up to take on more of a vocal role and delivered a rather brilliant 20 minutes of soft electro and creations that immediately got you dancing. Beyond the anecdote of almost ending her show with a cover of the Barça anthem, it was a show that revealed an artist with a more than promising future.