When Primavera Sound unveiled its 2025 line-up last October, there was a collective internet gasp, a flurry of TikTok reaction videos, and, crucially, a record-time sell-out. Why? Three words: Charli. Sabrina. Chappell – the holy trinity of pop girls, arguably the most coveted artists in the world, all topping the bill in one weekend. In short, Spain’s premier festival had a lot to live up to before it even opened its gates.
Primavera, which began back in 2001, has long been the cooler cousin in the European festival family, starting its life as an indie rock offering. Set on the sun-drenched shores of Barcelona’s Parc del Fòrum, the night-time festival stretches from dusk ‘til dawn, with the Mediterranean on one side and brutalist architecture on the other.
This year, however, the centre of gravity shifted squarely towards pop maximalism. And the festival leaned all the way in – case in point: a towering Powerpuff Girls statue standing guard at the entrance, a nod to the weekend’s leading ladies.
Irish alt-pop darling CMAT eased us into the first night on the Cupra stage with a golden-hour set as the sun dipped over the Forum, crooning viral bangers like Take A Sexy Picture Of Me while leading a sea of TikTok choreo. Her set was joyful, with soaring vocals and sardonic wit offering the perfect aperitivo for the mayhem to come.
FKA Twigs on the main stage took us somewhere else entirely – a three-act abstract opus blending baroque visuals, industrial beats, and extended pole-dance performance art. It was erotic, academic and emotionally elusive, the kind of set that splits festival-goers down the middle.
As she vanished into the shadows, a swarm of lime-green Brat T-shirts flooded in. Almost a year to the day since the album dropped, Charli XCX emerged onto the Estrella Damn stage at 1am in her signature wraparound sunglasses and black knee-high boots, her set a pulsing, spiky celebration of her era-defining sixth studio album. She teamed up with Troye Sivan, who was celebrating his 30th birthday that night, to revive their co-headlining Sweat tour, for an unrelenting two-hour club blitz.
The Cambridge-born hyperpop princess controlled the stage with military precision, diving into high-BPM hits like 365, Club Classics, and Von Dutch, stalking the risers like a hyperpop dominatrix. Troye, all grin and sweat and slippery synths, was her perfect foil making out with one of his dancers mid-song, slurring “I’m drunk as shit right now,” and offering the audience just enough camp to temper Charli’s industrial edge. Together, they brought down the house with their collab Talk Talk, before Charli surprised Troye with a Sweat-themed birthday cake. And in one of the most talked-about moments of the festival, the crowd got an early Chappell Roan teaser, as the camera panned to her in the crowd performing the now-iconic TikTok dance to Apple.
The following night saw California sisters Haim warm up the crowd for the first stop on their I Quit tour, debuting new songs Relationships and Down to be wrong, before Sabrina Carpenter took to the main stage. Where Charli weaponised glitch and abrasion, Carpenter leaned into theatricality and sheen. Her set – styled like a '60s variety show with flickering retro vignettes and mock-commercial interludes – was as tightly choreographed as a Broadway number.
She told the crowd she was jet-lagged, but there was no sign of fatigue. She tried out her Spanish with a wink, telling the crowd it was “muy muy caliente” and later covered Raining Men, which was as gleeful and ridiculous as it sounds. After debuting her new track Manchild, an anthem about emotionally-stunted men, she closed out the night with Espresso as thousands of fans screamed every syllable like gospel, a triumphant reminder of her status as pop royalty.
Sunday was Chappell Roan’s coronation. Fans arrived hours before gates opened, camping out in the blazing midday sun, and the air buzzed with a cultish energy. Irish post-punk band Fontaines DC performed a sundowner set, before the Midwest Princess arrived on the main stage to close out the evening. Emerging onto a stage transformed into a gothic castle, Chappell appeared in a towering headdress, butterfly makeup and flowing robes, clutching a silver staff. She opened with Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl and never once took her foot off the gas.
Roan is undoubtedly the rock star of the headliner triptych. Her vocal control was impressive throughout, veering from theatrical wails to whispery confessions, always emotionally grounded. She performed nearly every song from her debut (and only) album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, as well as her new sapphic country banger The Giver – during the bridge, she read aloud anonymous fan submissions about useless ex-boyfriends, pulled from a helmet.
“I love you, I love you, I love you,” she told the crowd, looking genuinely overcome with emotion, before ending with Pink Pony Club, sparking the weekend’s most euphoric mass singalong – bodies on shoulders, cowboy hats flying, mascara streaked across cheeks. (It would be remiss not to mention the hard pivot into west-London rapper Central Cee on the main stage, who opened with Doja and its infamous opening line, “How can I be homophobic, my bitch is gay.” The Pink Pony Club exodus was swift).
As with every festival, there were a few hiccups. For an event where temperatures regularly flirted with 25 degrees, the lack of water situation was less than ideal – €3 for a 330ml bottle and only one refill station I spotted all weekend. Post-festival transport could also have done with some improvement: the journey back into the centre of the city often took longer than the actual headliner sets.
Still, Primavera 2025 didn’t just live up to the hype – it eclipsed it in a blaze of butterfly wings, boot-stomps, and glitter. With a line-up that felt pulled straight from the internet’s wildest dreams and a crowd that knew every lyric, every dance move, every meme, this was more than a music festival, it was a cultural event.
