Tame Impala, FKA Twigs, Solange, J Balvin, Interpol, Rosalía: by just about anyone’s standards, the line-up at this year’s Primavera Sound (30 May – 1 June) is unsparingly brilliant. The best of 2019? Well, it’s definitely up there (for other contenders, see page 54), if not for its genre-mashing breadth then for the oddly unsung fact that it’s one of the first music-festival billings to hit gender parity: of the 226 artists booked, more than 50 per cent are female, which the festival claims is its “new normal”. Ahead of its time? Not according to a statement released earlier this year: “We should have done this ages ago. If half of our audience is female, why shouldn’t half of our line-up be so, too?”
