Everything started with the Mad Cool Warm Up Party on Wednesday 11th of July in La Riviera concert hall in Madrid: MGMT offered a special performance to present their latest work Little Dark Age (2018). The Synthpop duo gathered a huge number of fans at la Riviera. My love for MGMT comes from their eternal hits “Electric Feel”, “Time to Pretend” and “Kids”, and hearing them live was a dream come true. In addition, their visuals coupled with their psych music proved a good value.
MadCool opening day was the only day I could come, so it has been a single day festival to me. No review could start without mentioning the severely inadequate planning and insufficient infrastructure able to cope with the double in numbers for 2018 compared to previous years, causing a total implosion on the first day and unforgivable long queues to get in, eat and drink…
My festival started off by listening to Eels under the evening sun. The band is one of my friend’s favorites, and Beautiful Freak (1996) is one of her teenage classics. On top of that, EELS leader Mark Oliver Everett (aka E) has been back in our homes with his role the pretentious hipster‘s husband of Mickey Dobbs’ friend in Netflix series LOVE.
While we waited for our friends to arrive and team up, we sneezed Leon Bridges concert. He sure had an undeniable presence and his dance moves kept you interested for a couple of songs. Even though I didn’t know a single one, «Bad Bad News» is the one I got particularly recommended
Having gathered all of our friends together, we go to one of the big names of the day for me: Tame Impala. Since this festival has gotten so big, we were towards the middle of the crowd, quite far and I felt remote, distant and slightly connected to their pumped psychedelics. However, «Let it Happen», «The less I Know the better», and their trademark confetti cannons were sufficiently great to me.
Next, we moved into The Loop stage were unexpectedly I enjoyed the best concerts of the night. The Loop is where the more dance-based elements of the Mad Cool line-up play. It’s a covered aircraft-hanger like space; a tunnelled arch of corrugated iron where lights bounce around you and sound does the same. I’ve never heard of the electronic music composer Gold Panda, but we’d caught the end of the DJ set, and it was just fun-tastic.
After them, I finished theMad Cool festival 2018 with the best concert of the day: Justice. The French electro powerhouse duo, make the air thick with sweat at the Loop, Just when you think that a single festival day cannot possibly have a higher number pf highlights, a mercilessly rave-ish version of «We Are Your Friends» starts and the screams of the crowd are heard literally a mile away. Truly unforgettable.
The time to come back home had arrived, and I’d been worried about getting off site for most of the time I was on site. I went for the bus option. After a fair amount of queueing, I got a bus to Plaza de Castilla, a second bus heading towards Cibeles to then take a cab to Menendez Pelayo. The first day of Mad Cool was a joyless experience. Love gigs with sun and friends!
Stereo Giraffe 