One more year, and it's already 30, the Sónar festival closed its doors this Saturday scoring a new success with the public and line-up. More than 120,000 people attended the three days of concerts, a figure very similar to that reached last year and close to the record of 126,000 achieved in 2018. With these numbers, the festival organization highlighted that, if the inaugural concert is excluded, that This year it has not been held, it is the edition with the most public success in history.
This attendance has been distributed among the 51,000 people who have attended Sónar by Day and the 69,000 who have attended the night edition. The daytime event, held at the Fira de Montjuïc, has brought together between 15,000 and 18,000 people daily, while the two night sessions that have been held at the Gran Via de l'Hospitalet venue attracted 34,000 people per day . An audience from 101 different countries, with 68% national presence and 32% foreigners.
With these numbers on the table, Ricard Robles, director of the festival, defined this edition as "one of the most successful on a quantitative and qualitative level", highlighting that Sónar has become a "common meeting space for talent that reaffirms the festival as a cultural celebration.
And there was also a lot of celebration on Saturday night, which started with a trip to that future that is already present even though it is sometimes hard to assume. Thousands of cell phones were pointed at the SónarClub stage, from which a huge robotic hand emerged that flew over the room to, with its own cell phone, record the thousands of audiences gathered to attend Eric Prydz's spectacular session. The Swedish dj, a world reference since that Call on me in 2004, rocked an immersive show with Holo exploiting three-dimensional holographic technology, synchronized to the millimeter with a techno that put the whole world in motion.
Gigantic men clad in nbq suits sprayed the dance floor with smoke, robotic arms danced to the electrifying rhythm of the music, whales floated above the stage, and Prydz took advantage of the few moments of calm to greet from the booth a dedicated audience that greeted them with shouts and applause every new scene. Magically real presences that were combined with a spectacular game of light and lasers dancing all over the dance floor for an hour and a half of a session that was scheduled to end with an apotheosis to the rhythm of Opus amid shouts and applause.
A start to the party in style for a nocturnal session that was to continue with the coronation of Bad Gyal on her third visit to the festival as queen of the night in front of her audience, to then give way to the mixing tables where Alizzz, Amelie Lens, Richie Hawtin and Ángel Molina, in charge of DJing during the last sunrise of this 30th Sónar, were waiting for the sessions.
Hours before, the third and final day of the festival began with performances such as that of Phran, who put on the SonarHall stage the sound of the Minitecas from Caracas, Afro-Caribbean rhythms with a mix of dembow and electro by this Venezuelan DJ living in Barcelona. From Barcelona itself comes Leïti, who put on stage street stories told between hip-hop and trap, showing that his thing is music beyond his dalliances in front of the camera that made him famous with the Elite series. The Barcelona musician, who appeared wearing a mask, was accompanied on some songs by a dance group that, wearing clogs, juggled while on others it was dancers who accompanied him on stage before a full floor.
Although the one called 2manydj's in the Village was full after seven in the evening. The Dewaele brothers appeared accompanied by their exceptional guests, the British Peach and DJ Tiga, to offer the show that has made them in the last 20 years one of the most sought after mixers when it comes to throwing a good party, like the who started last night by playing a song by Rosalía to fill the Village area until it collapsed. Thousands of people dancing in unison that were able to continue the party with the combo of Horse Meat Disco and Prosumer, or what is the same, the music that triumphs at London gay parties.
There was also no shortage of innovative proposals on this hot Saturday, such as the Hyper_O project that Carles Viarnès and Alba G. Corral presented in the auditorium, supported by an organ through which Gregorian-based melodies played accompanied by the work of the visual artist, a project which had the merit of filling and retaining the audience at the Auditori. The kaleidoscopic images and digital constructions that were drawn automatically on the background of the stage accompanied the surprising melodies that Carles Viarnès extracted from the organ installed on the stage using a double keyboard. Whispering sounds, arrhythmic at times, alien to any idea that can be associated with the classic wind instrument, which both featured in the songs and served as the basis to accompany the notes extracted from pure electronics.
At the other extreme of the experimentation was The end, the piece with which Lolo
