Low Festival 2024 – 26 July 2024 (Benidorm)

Friday saw the start of a new edition of the Low Festival, the 13th in its history in Benidorm, with the Pixies, Suede and Los Planetas as the big headliners.

Black Francis of Pixies, Low festival 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

After a few small problems with finding a parking space and changing the wristband, our entrance to the festival coincided with “Paco y Carmela” and “La típica canción“, the last songs of the Ginebras concert, which, as we are used to [you can read here our chronicle of the last Lets Festival 2023, where they started the tour of their latest album ¿Quién es Billie Max? (2023) ], put on a good party that got the crowd dancing and didn’t seem to mind the high temperatures of the Benidorm afternoon.

Eva Amaral of Amaral, Low festival 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

The main stage at the Estadi Guillermo Amor was packed to the rafters to welcome Amaral. In a concert with an almost identical set list to the one we saw a few weeks ago at the Cruïlla in Barcelona, the Aragonese duo did not manage to transmit the same force that had amazed us at the Catalan festival. Apart from a few flashes of brilliance, such as the 10 minutes of ” Revolución” andHacia lo salvaje”, Their concert was a massive karaoke of an audience singing along to their greatest hits, beer in hand, jumping around with their friends, paying little attention to the musical side.… We don’t know if it was the size of the stage or the annoying booming echoes at the back of the stadium, but the truth is that we missed a little more power in everything except the voice of Eva, who was as wonderful as ever..

Juan Aguirre of Amaral, Low festival 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

After them, and back on the mini stage, it was time to catch up with Sidonie, whom we hadn’t seen live since the release of their latest album, Marc, Axel y Jes (2023), last autumn. In their own style, and with a setlist of hits that revived a squadron of zombies, they kept the party going both on stage and in the audience, although I personally found the sound a little lacking in variety.. The change of Edu Martinez and his keyboards for Jordi Bastida’s guitar seems to give Marc more freedom with the instrument and a very photogenic image with up to three guitars in the front line, but the richness of sound that they achieved in El regreso de Abba (2020) is diluted on the basis of a power that is not so powerful as to be worth the change.

Jes Senra of Sidonie, Low festival 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

The highlight of the day came after midnight with the Pixies, and we can only confirm that all the good things we expected from the concert were fulfilled in the almost one and a half hour concert and up to 24 songs. With guitars and shouts, the band led by Black Francis dazzled us from the beginning thanks to a setlist with a majority presence of their first albums and where they seem to have forgotten all those albums recorded without Kim Deal… So for the first half hour of the show we were treated to “Gouge Away“, “Wave Of Mutilation“, “Isla de Encanta“, “Hey” or a weird version of The Jesus and Mary Chain‘s “Head On“.. With Joey Santiago in full swing on guitar, the concert would increase in rhythm and ferocity in each song, leaving us with our mouths open in “Caribou“, and at the same time we would also discover how well the latest addition to the band, Emma Richardson, who took the lead on bass and vocals in “In Heaven“, has moulded herself to the group.

Black Francis of Pixies, Low festival 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

With few words between songs, the only moments of relative calm were those in which Black Francis himself seemed to be playing with his guitar to create more typical flamenco chords, so when, to our surprise, the first notes ofHere Comes Your Man” were played, good part of the crowd was on the wrong side of the fence, but it didn’t matter when, seconds later, they were all dancing to the rhythm of the Americans’ most pop song… From this point on, and With the audience engaged, the show focused on Trompe le Monde (1991)., among which they interspersed “Chicken”, new track from their tenth studio album The Night the Zombies Came (2024) which will be released in October. There was still time for a glorious last 15 minutes, first with the eagerly awaited “Where Is My Mind?“, then with a great Neil Young cover like “Winterlong” and finally with the final bang of “Debaser“..
Exhaustos ante el torrente sonoro que nos había pasado por encima, ni siquiera el hecho de no haber tocado “Monkey Gone to heaven” o “Gigantic” pueden ser una mínima mancha en un conciertazo que demuestra el perfecto estado de uno de los tótems del rock alternativo internacional… ¡¡Larga vida a Pixies!!

Joey Santiago of Pixies, Low festival 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

Curiosities of the timetable, next on the mini stage was a band named after a song by Massachusetts band La La Love You. The thing is that, apart from the name, they seem to be at opposite ends of the musical spectrum… The band, led by Roberto Amor, presented an over-sweetened festive pop proposal that seemed to delight the front rows, where we even saw young teenagers.. Apart from a few final minutes of radio hits, in which we can highlight the success of a song like “El principio de algo“, which at times reminds us of the best of Blink182, their concert was monotonous, with the predominance of a drum kit that marked the same rhythms for a good part of the concert and some rather flat guitars.

Roberto Amor of La La Love You, Low festival 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

The way back to the main stage was no better for us, as British band Maxïmo Park gave one of the worst concerts we can remember from them. The band from Newcastle, who surprised us with the magnificent A Certain Trigger (2005) almost two decades ago, came to the Alicante city a few months before presenting their new album Stream of Life (2024), and despite starting their concert with some of their best known songs like “Girls Who Play Guitars” or “The Coast Is Always Changing“, they did little to transmit with the songs they played next.. A well-muscled Paul Smith with his typical hat and speedy moves tried to get the audience into the show, but little by little the audience opted to go to other stages…

Paul Smith of Maxïmo Park, Low Festival 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

A fact that surprised even Shego, who filled the Radio3 stage and wondered if “the whole Low festival was watching them“. Theirs, as on the last few occasions we have seen them live, was a real gale of strength and punk-rock.. With an exchange of voices between the three main members, the concert served to announce that many of the songs currently in the setlist will disappear as the release of their long-awaited new album approaches, from which they played some songs such as ‘Da igual dónde sea la fiesta‘ or a cover of ‘España Corazones‘ by Los Punsetes, which turned the audience upside down.. For the concert to have been a perfect 10, we missed the sublime “Pobre Diabla” version of Don Omar‘s by Raquel Cerro or the live performance of “Steak Tar Tar”, which has been established as the closing song in its remix version… By the way, the new drummer (who we could already see in the spring concerts of L’H) gives the band a much more powerful touch, which raises the wall of sound of the quartet.

Sergio of Delaporte, Low Festival 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo^©

By late evening we were already low on energy, so we don’t know if that was the reason for the proposal from Delaporte in their live performance at the Alicante Festival caught us so offside… After seeing the duo to give a great concert a little over a year ago when yhey opened for Zahara at the Alma Festival in Barcelona.
, their Friday show it seemed like a disco party that started with any of their songs and within two minutes had turned into a mindless rave where bass rhythms dominated everything at a thunderous volume. We understand that this could happen with the tracks from their latest album Aquí y Ahora (2024)., which made up 50% of their setlist and in which they made a clear commitment to techno, but the damage in songs like “Un Jardín” or “Clap Clap” is the kind that hurts…