primal scream

last weekend an englishman in a band called freefall collective told me a story of performing on a street stage in the south of spain with the mountains looming in the background. this weekend was 'la mercé', a festival in celebration of mare de deu de la mercé, the patron saint of barcelona. i think i have never seen a country so in love with street parties like spain. last night, with two standard issue residential buildings and the antigua fabrica (old factory) as background i saw quintessential brit rock band primal scream perform, along with thousands of other catalonians sporting mullets and cheek piercings. 'baaa-rcelonaa! yeeww. ahr. one. sick. fuckin'. cit-t-yyyyyy!!!' the show was glorious, the harder they rocked. i particularly appreciated 'movin on up', which turns the aspirational theme from the jeffersons into a fuck-off-i'm-better-off-without-you break up song. from the street to the forum, the convention center where i saw deepak chopra speak in july. somehow they'd dismantled the floors and knocked out the walls, leaving only a cavern of ceilings and columns. dj's gaiser and richard hawtins played minimal to hard techno to about 1 million zombies. sweating. glazed eyes. eyes with lids-at-half-mast. perceptions of personal space, dissolved. balance? shot. which is the only way you can truly enjoy this soulless music. which is really funny (as in, a total waste of paper), given the fact that these

were distributed by really attractive youngsters at the entrances of all surrounding metro stations. 'discover the truth about drugs!,' their blue tees read. 'say no to drugs, say yes to life!,' the pamphlets read. about an hour into the set, three sweaty catalan boys pushed through the crowd to stand right in front of me. the sweatiest unfolded a little white paper, shifted its powdery contents, calibrating. another pulled a little silver instrument out of his pocket. one-by-one, they sniffed.