Primavera Sound Day 3: Six-way main-stage handoff

From Grace Ives charging through blazing heat to My Bloody Valentine’s wall of noise, Day 3 of Primavera Sound 2026 turned Parc del Fòrum into a living contrast of pop revelation and alternative devotion—before Olivia Rodrigo’s surprise arrival and a return tr

On Saturday. June 6. Parc del Fòrum felt like it couldn’t decide what kind of festival it wanted to be. By late afternoon. the forum split into two parallel worlds: one side kept believers planted in front of the main stages for alternative behemoths. while the other hosted pop favorites—steady. bright. and built for gasps.

Then the organizing logic clicked into place. The day didn’t just move through headliners. It braided them. And when Olivia Rodrigo appeared as an announced surprise guest—debuting a new song with the Cure’s Robert Smith—it gave the final stretch of Primavera Sound 2026 the kind of momentum you only feel when the night seems to be rising toward its own climax.

Here are five highlights from Day 3.

Grace Ives Is Invincible
Grace Ives practically telegraphed the surprise mood long before anyone said the name. She was on the bill earlier in the day and, as it happens, she’s opening for Olivia Rodrigo on the Uravelled Tour.

Unravelling—“cough” and all—on the Cupra stage just after 6pm. she performed through sun that was still blazing enough to make her wipe sweat off her face between songs. Heat sharpened everything: her new-album material, including “Fire 2,” seemed to spark brighter under the light. The set ran with a three-piece setup that included a drummer and a synth maestro.

Her opening punch—“Avalanche” followed by “Dance With Me”—landed as pure momentum. “My Mans” shifted into something close to a power ballad, with Ives on keys. When she wasn’t singing. she used playful grimaces and hand gestures to punctuate lyrics. and at one point her yellow sunglasses flew from her face to the ground.

She closed with “Stupid Bitches,” which the evening suggested could very plausibly become the song of the year. By then, the belief in the headline felt less like fandom and more like physics: nothing seemed able to touch her—or the crowd.

Big Thief Turn the Forum Into a Giant Living Room
Big Thief arrived at the main stage with the kind of weathered confidence that makes a crowd sing as if it’s already familiar with the melody.

Adrianne Lenker told the massive crowd, “We’re all just in a giant living room, right?” as they sang along to “Vampire Empire.” Buck Meek followed by pointing out the song was recorded right here in Catalonia.

The sound helped: the weather was crisp, and the live mix hardly wavered even for people standing further behind. The energy was the thing that moved first. Lenker paused to gesture upward while singing “Like the sky” on “Change. ” which was the show’s most subdued. emotionally charged moment—and it still landed like a fast. bright pulse.

Bassist Joshua Crumbly played as if he’d been with the band for a decade rather than a year. He joined after the departure of Max Oleartchik, and the band’s details carried their own politics: James Krivchenia’s drums had a Free Palestine sticker on them next to the band’s scribbled name.

Crumbly laid down melodious arpeggios on “Not,” a moment that pulled the whole band into unison singing. Lenker’s guitar solos didn’t just show up—they branched, diverging across songs like separate weather systems. She delivered something swarmy on “Simulation Swarm. ” cradled waves of distortion on “Christmas Day. ” and violently slid up and down the fretboard through “Vampire Empire.”.

The set opened with “Forgive the Dream. ” which felt electrified in its dreaminess compared to the recently debuted acoustic live version. Alongside familiar cuts, the band played unreleased tracks including “Mr. Man” and “Beautiful World.” Whether it was the first listen or the umpteenth. Big Thief made the songs feel strangely. deeply familiar.

Shoegaze Faithfuls Assemble for My Bloody Valentine
If there was a question in the air going into My Bloody Valentine. it came dressed as caution. The band is notorious for reconciling reticence with ear-shattering heaviness. and the shaky sound at Slowdive’s set the previous day had been portentive.

So when My Bloody Valentine entered the stage, the immediate move was practical: earplugs on. Even after a mass of people left to catch Olivia Rodrigo. I was close to the Estrella Damm stage and still surprised by how crisply mixed and lean the band sounded when they started with “I Only Said.” One nearby fan shouted “Louder!” after the opening.

The response seemed to land with “When You Sleep.” For about an hour and a half. Kevin Shields and company vacillated between ferocious fuzz and brain-melting shoegaze voyages. “Loveless” tracks like “Only Shallow” drew the biggest reactions. and “Soon” came with a visual that shifted with the music—starting with a simple disco ball and turning into a hypnotic 3D tunnel on “Wonder 2.”.

Shields spoke once, meekly; his mic was swaddled in effects so his words were indecipherable before he delivered the show’s earth-shattering conclusion. It was the kind of performance where the body understands the need for protection long before the mind can argue with it.

The xx’s Not-So-Silent Devotion
The xx’s flood of affection started the moment the first notes of “Crystallized” hit the Revolut stage. It wasn’t just love for each other and the crowd—it was love for music itself.

Early in the set, they slipped back into songs from their self-titled debut, released only a year before they first played the festival as a group, eight years earlier. The gratitude in those early moves felt like it belonged to a reunion that doesn’t only end with nostalgia.

Between songs, they expressed it plainly. Romy noted they were out there with the fans when it rained down on Thursday.

Behind the decks, Jamie xx built the atmosphere around “Fiction.” The giant “X” platform descended as purple shards of light moved through the scene, suggesting retreat into shells—then flipped upward as Romy sang “Can I make it better with the lights turned on?” on the 2017 live remix of “Shelter.”

But the most stirring and intimate moment was “VCR.” The song sent shivers through the crowd as the giant screens settled on a close-up of Romy staring at Oliver Sim while he sang. It felt almost audible—her gulping down a knot in her throat—before she sang reverently into the mic: “Love. love. love.”.

The night left one question hanging over the xx’s set. How can a band that treasures slowness make time pass so fast?. They moved through upbeat solo tracks without losing the thread of togetherness, never pushing anyone member aside. Their euphoria stretched from “Loud Places” to “On Hold.” After winding back with “I Dare You. ” the only direction left was “the very beginning.”.

Ninajirachi Has Never Been to London Spain
At Parc del Fòrum. the Port stage is one of the smallest. but it filled over the weekend with fans of Water From Your Eyes. Lambrini Girls. and more. As I walked from Kneecap’s show at Occident down toward the water’s edge—passing Nick León’s set at the Schwarzkopf stage—there was already a huge crowd waiting for Ninajirachi.

She’d been massively hyped by the way the organizers placed her on the second to last row of the original Primavera Sound 2026 poster. The hype wasn’t just about the placement. Her debut album. I Love My Computer. will probably be remembered as one of the best of the decade. and her electronic set delivered like the kind of commitment club music rarely gets.

I missed the 12-hour program Skrillex curated as SONNY at the adjacent Cupra Pulse, which featured the likes of Arca and Four Tet, but Ninajirachi more than justified the time.

She may or may not have dropped “London Song” as an opener to allude to the fact she had never been to Spain—“best crowd ever,” she said.

No one seemed surprised when she closed with “Fuck My Computer. ” her most popular song. but the set built toward it without letting up. She captivated the crowd before that ending. delivering a fantastic club take on “Berghain” and the brattiest version of “Rock Music. ” then pushing it under the banner of her own “girl EDM.”.

Somewhere in the thump and shimmer, the memory of Adrianne Lenker’s line returned—“Let me dance in front of people without a care,” a line from “Incomprehensible”—and it landed as a perfect match for what the night had offered. There’s no better word for it.

Primavera Sound 2026 Grace Ives Big Thief My Bloody Valentine The xx Jamie xx Ninajirachi Olivia Rodrigo Robert Smith Parc del Fòrum Catalonia live music