In the last week, you may have seen an excruciatingly ill-judged video feature from a normally reasonably on-it national newspaper, in which someone is "challenged" to "party"—used repeatedly as a verb, dear me—for 24 hours straight at Sónar Festival. Quiet diplomacy is probably the most dignified approach when considering the Fear and Loathing-style madness or otherwise of staying up for "A FULL 24 HOURS!" at Sónar, so let's move swiftly on to what I wanted to do with 2014's edition of Barcelona's annual orgy of electronic music.
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Sónar, and the hundreds of unofficial events surrounding it (which we'll refer to as Sonar-off events here, in the wake of the official organizers recent deeming of the reverse form of that term as unacceptable) last nearly a full week, so I decided to devote myself to roaming the best that the official and unofficial festivals had to offer—and keeping a diary of the ups, the downs and the not-quite-sure's of around 120 hours spent in the Catalan capital's mid-June madness.WEDNESDAY
Up until this year, the Wednesday of Sónar week was an aspiring rather than full-blown part of the Sónar-off jamboree, but this year it gained full membership, with a host of day and night events to choose from. Sadly I was unable to attend the daytime Maeve Records showcase at El Monasterio that I'd planned to kick my Sonar off with, but having been to the spectacular hillside setting at which it was held several times before, and been blown away by bill-toppers Tale Of Us twice in the last couple of months, I feel qualified to surmise that it was almost certainly fantastic. With various "It's a marathon, not a sprint" mantras percolating through my head, I made for the annual Feel My Bicep, Electric Minds and Mono_cult Wednesday-nighter, which had this year been moved from the mid-sized BeCool venue in Eixample, to the huge Razzmatazz space in Poble Nou."…but it's at Razzmatazz" is a common disheartened ending to sentences when discussing weekend plans in this city, but the confining of this event to a couple of corners of what is generally an alienating rabbit-warren nightmare of a venue eliminated the usual gripes, and set up some of the best fun we had all week. We stuck mostly to the main room where Bicep and then Levon Vincent were at the helm, with the pulverising heat of the second room limiting us to brief snatches of a set from Move D—during which the Heidelberg maestro constantly appeared to have just had a bucket of water tipped over his head. "I just feel so happy right now," said one of my friends as Bicep dropped Blaze's "Lovelee Dae." Somewhere, the Sónar gods smiled in the knowledge that they were already working their magic.
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THURSDAY
Resident Advisor's party at the aforementioned, spectacular El Monasterio was our first appointment on Thursday, and despite the delights of a now-dry Move D and Roman Flugel b2b with Midland, it was John Talabot and Axel Boman's b2b Talaboman set that stole the show. Highlights peppered the proceedings, but sticking an infectious bass drum beat under John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" as we watched dusk settle over the city created a moment as special as any I can remember. With Glasgow connections running deep in our group, Numbers' annual showcase at Sala Apolo in Poble Sec was the only choice for Thursday night. We dipped in and out of a set by Hudson Mohawke that I'd describe as half-trance, half-R&B and entirely too bitty and stop-start to be enjoyable at this juncture. Jackmaster hauled the night back in the last hour and a half; skillfully building the euphoria with 'Up' by Butrich, and bringing the house down with Prince's "Controversy."FRIDAY
It's possible that there is a better way to wake up after two days of "partying" than to the current co-occupants of your suddenly-oversubscribed Barcelona room presenting you with a delicious homemade Bloody Mary and putting on a blissful old mix by Paul Kalkbrenner, but I can't really think of what it would be. You gals are welcome back anytime. Suitably replenished I made for Sónar by Day, where Bonobo and Jon Hopkins' live sets pressed similar buttons, and a couple of visits to James Murphy and 2 Many DJs' six-hour disco-focused Despacio set made for wonderful pep-up sessions.
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Following some food and the hilarious sight of a bar full of Catalans revelling loudly in Spain's World Cup misfortunes, it was on to Kompakt's showcase at Sala Apolo. A live show from Kolsch topped Michael Mayer's rather laboured DJ set, but both were overshadowed by Rebolledo: who we met and chatted with outside, and whose friendliness and affability will live long in our otherwise addled memories.SATURDAY
My live-in companions for the first half of Sónar week had, for reasons that remain opaque to me even now, opted to leave Barcelona at noon on Saturday, so after a stunningly paltry two hours of sleep we drifted sleepily to the train station and murmured our goodbye's. A hermit crab-like male friend took their place in my flat/bed within what seemed like seconds, bringing an extra dollop of tragicomedy to the strung-out, half-asleep accidental spooning incidents that are a common hazard in these situations. After showering, blending the living fuck out of and consuming 12 euros' worth of fruit, and hiding from one of my English-language students who I'd forgotten to cancel on and who wouldn't stop ringing my flat buzzer, I headed back to Sónar by Day.There, I caught Matthew Dear's immersive new Audion live/AV show, James Holden's excellent live-band presentation of The Inheritors, and DJ Harvey dropping Untold's glorious "Motion The Dance" in his superb closing set. After that, it was straight to the enormous Fira Gran Via on the city's outskirts for Sónar by Night. There, the semi-ubiquitous but always-welcome James Murphy warmed us up for the biggest set-piece of the whole week, Chic. An endless riot of favorites ("Everybody Dance," "I Want Your Love") and Rodgers-produced hits ("Like A Virgin," "Let's Dance," "Get Lucky"), Chic whipped up one of the purest, most irresistible party atmospheres I've ever witnessed. As "Le Freak" kicked in, a friend who had recently declared the Purple One's recent Glasgow show to be the gig of her life, grabbed me and screamed: "THIS IS BETTER THAN PRINCE!"
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Everything post-Chic would have been a comedown even if the heavens hadn't opened soon afterwards, but during the Boyz Noize set in one of the outdoor areas that's exactly what happened; revealing me to be one of maybe three people at Sónar weird enough to have brought an umbrella, and leaving the outdoor areas deserted aside from the odd pocket of frenzied, rain-worshipping oddballs—all of whom are likely to catch their deaths if they carry on like this. Tiga put in a valiant closing set DJ that we watched cowering under the outer tip of the stage's domed roof. Not your classic, watching-the-sun-rise, rejoicing-in-life close to Sónar then, but the knowledge that every one of us had already had one of the nights of our lives before the elements intervened was ample consolation.SUNDAY
Our rampant post-Chic glow carried us to various flat parties during Sunday, during which ludicrous patter carried us through more than intoxicants or tasteful music selections ever could. As people began to melt away mid-evening I located my professional hat once more, pulverised another shopping bag's-worth of fruit and, with two hours' sleep under my belt since Friday morning, summoned the desire to propel my carcass into a taxi bound for the Night Slugs showcase at BeCool.There I found the same, very specific, Sunday-of-Sónar atmosphere that I've enjoyed in years past: everyone shattered, for sure, but also unusually friendly and chatty, with a touch of demob-happiness thrown in for good measure. I lasted until 5am, at which point it was very definitely time to put myself and my Sónar 2014 to bed. I had lofty ambitions for the Monday—that evening's Beachcoma showcase at Moog, and some secret-location party involving San Proper—but everyone has their limits, and we had reached ours.
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Up until this year, the Wednesday of Sónar week was an aspiring rather than full-blown part of the Sónar-off jamboree, but this year it gained full membership, with a host of day and night events to choose from. Sadly I was unable to attend the daytime Maeve Records showcase at El Monasterio that I'd planned to kick my Sonar off with, but having been to the spectacular hillside setting at which it was held several times before, and been blown away by bill-toppers Tale Of Us twice in the last couple of months, I feel qualified to surmise that it was almost certainly fantastic. With various "It's a marathon, not a sprint" mantras percolating through my head, I made for the annual Feel My Bicep, Electric Minds and Mono_cult Wednesday-nighter, which had this year been moved from the mid-sized BeCool venue in Eixample, to the huge Razzmatazz space in Poble Nou."…but it's at Razzmatazz" is a common disheartened ending to sentences when discussing weekend plans in this city, but the confining of this event to a couple of corners of what is generally an alienating rabbit-warren nightmare of a venue eliminated the usual gripes, and set up some of the best fun we had all week. We stuck mostly to the main room where Bicep and then Levon Vincent were at the helm, with the pulverising heat of the second room limiting us to brief snatches of a set from Move D—during which the Heidelberg maestro constantly appeared to have just had a bucket of water tipped over his head. "I just feel so happy right now," said one of my friends as Bicep dropped Blaze's "Lovelee Dae." Somewhere, the Sónar gods smiled in the knowledge that they were already working their magic.THURSDAY
It's possible that there is a better way to wake up after two days of "partying" than to the current co-occupants of your suddenly-oversubscribed Barcelona room presenting you with a delicious homemade Bloody Mary and putting on a blissful old mix by Paul Kalkbrenner, but I can't really think of what it would be. You gals are welcome back anytime. Suitably replenished I made for Sónar by Day, where Bonobo and Jon Hopkins' live sets pressed similar buttons, and a couple of visits to James Murphy and 2 Many DJs' six-hour disco-focused Despacio set made for wonderful pep-up sessions.Following some food and the hilarious sight of a bar full of Catalans revelling loudly in Spain's World Cup misfortunes, it was on to Kompakt's showcase at Sala Apolo. A live show from Kolsch topped Michael Mayer's rather laboured DJ set, but both were overshadowed by Rebolledo: who we met and chatted with outside, and whose friendliness and affability will live long in our otherwise addled memories.SATURDAY
My live-in companions for the first half of Sónar week had, for reasons that remain opaque to me even now, opted to leave Barcelona at noon on Saturday, so after a stunningly paltry two hours of sleep we drifted sleepily to the train station and murmured our goodbye's. A hermit crab-like male friend took their place in my flat/bed within what seemed like seconds, bringing an extra dollop of tragicomedy to the strung-out, half-asleep accidental spooning incidents that are a common hazard in these situations. After showering, blending the living fuck out of and consuming 12 euros' worth of fruit, and hiding from one of my English-language students who I'd forgotten to cancel on and who wouldn't stop ringing my flat buzzer, I headed back to Sónar by Day.There, I caught Matthew Dear's immersive new Audion live/AV show, James Holden's excellent live-band presentation of The Inheritors, and DJ Harvey dropping Untold's glorious "Motion The Dance" in his superb closing set. After that, it was straight to the enormous Fira Gran Via on the city's outskirts for Sónar by Night. There, the semi-ubiquitous but always-welcome James Murphy warmed us up for the biggest set-piece of the whole week, Chic. An endless riot of favorites ("Everybody Dance," "I Want Your Love") and Rodgers-produced hits ("Like A Virgin," "Let's Dance," "Get Lucky"), Chic whipped up one of the purest, most irresistible party atmospheres I've ever witnessed. As "Le Freak" kicked in, a friend who had recently declared the Purple One's recent Glasgow show to be the gig of her life, grabbed me and screamed: "THIS IS BETTER THAN PRINCE!"Everything post-Chic would have been a comedown even if the heavens hadn't opened soon afterwards, but during the Boyz Noize set in one of the outdoor areas that's exactly what happened; revealing me to be one of maybe three people at Sónar weird enough to have brought an umbrella, and leaving the outdoor areas deserted aside from the odd pocket of frenzied, rain-worshipping oddballs—all of whom are likely to catch their deaths if they carry on like this. Tiga put in a valiant closing set DJ that we watched cowering under the outer tip of the stage's domed roof. Not your classic, watching-the-sun-rise, rejoicing-in-life close to Sónar then, but the knowledge that every one of us had already had one of the nights of our lives before the elements intervened was ample consolation.SUNDAY
Our rampant post-Chic glow carried us to various flat parties during Sunday, during which ludicrous patter carried us through more than intoxicants or tasteful music selections ever could. As people began to melt away mid-evening I located my professional hat once more, pulverised another shopping bag's-worth of fruit and, with two hours' sleep under my belt since Friday morning, summoned the desire to propel my carcass into a taxi bound for the Night Slugs showcase at BeCool.There I found the same, very specific, Sunday-of-Sónar atmosphere that I've enjoyed in years past: everyone shattered, for sure, but also unusually friendly and chatty, with a touch of demob-happiness thrown in for good measure. I lasted until 5am, at which point it was very definitely time to put myself and my Sónar 2014 to bed. I had lofty ambitions for the Monday—that evening's Beachcoma showcase at Moog, and some secret-location party involving San Proper—but everyone has their limits, and we had reached ours.Kit Macdonald is a Scot living in Barcelona. You can follow Kit Macdonald on Twitter here: @kitmacdonaldRead more about festivals on THUMP:What Does Music Smell Like? Well, Unsound's Ephemera Project is Bottling ItCrimea is in Chaos, But its Dance Festival "Republic" Kazantip Doesn't Give a ShitSeth Troxler: "Dance Festivals are The Best and Worst Places in The World"Montreal's Finest Electronic Festival, Mutek, Turns 15