In one of the first editions of Cara B, now Festival B, a still little-known Bad Gyal gave a concert at Fabra i Coats. Yesterday, Friday, September 18, her sister Mushkaa was the headliner of the day at the renewed and expanded festival, which has been held at the Fórum in Barcelona for five editions now. This year, by moving the dates forward, it caused an overlap with the Mercat de Música Viva de Vic, another of the autumn music events in Catalonia.
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After some time without concerts, Mushkaa offered her repertoire with a new live show, with a five-member band and a mixing desk in the center where everyone gathered as if it were a house party. There she performed her greatest hits and invited some of her usual collaborators to the stage, such as Ouineta, Julieta, ultralone (who had performed just hours before), and C Marí. With the latter, she got an audience too young to remember when it came out to sing at the top of their lungs ‘Colgando en tus manos’, by Carlos Baute and Marta Sánchez.
It was not only at Mushkaa’s concert: the audience at Festival B was young and local, with no trace of the histrionic clothing or tourists who usually stroll around the Fórum at other festivals like Primavera Sound. Born in 2015 to host the alternative music scene, Festival B has established itself as one of the most anticipated events by Barcelonans because it combines the possibility of discovering new voices with the most prominent names of the moment in the local scene.
Mushkaa was not the only one to fuse urban sounds with instrumental bands: on the most urban day of a festival that likes to mix genres, the Sevillian Juicy BAE adapted trap music to her band and the Chilean Akriila presented her new album, Lucy looked at the world and noticed it was spinning, where she moves away from autotune and draws inspiration from George Harrison and The Beatles.
Stereo Madness filled the stage with disco balls to sing their latest album, Cyberfunk; the Valencian D. Valentino presented BABY, his new album after the success of Rosa&Rojo; the Madrilenian 8belial presented his project EL PRÍNCIPE; and the Andalusians Xiyo and Fernandezz gathered a crowd of 21st-century-born fans who knew all the lyrics of the reggaeton that sounds like before. But the most anticipated concert was Yung Beef’s, who rapped in front of (and at times on top of) a monster that looked like it was made of paper and was accompanied by a troupe of dancers.
The festival celebrates its last day of the edition this Saturday with the most indie artists in the lineup. The big headliners will be the Madrilenian Rusowsky and the Valencian Guitarricadelafuente, the singer-songwriter now also known for his leading role in La bola negra, the film by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi.
There will also be representation from the Catalan music scene, with the electronic pop of Gavina.mp3, the folk of the duo Alosa, or the DJ and performer Meritxell de Soto. Other expected names are the group Sanguijuelas del Guadiana, pablopablo, Rebe, La Élite, or Tristán!, a producer who emerged from the same collective as Rusowsky or Ralphie Choo.
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