Stockholm was visited by Sónar, the famous Barcelona festival during the 26th and 27th of February. This edition took place at Nobelberget, which is an industrial complex, located in Sickla on the south side of the city.
The festival presented a total of 28 DJ and band performances spread across three stages. It was a well balanced mix of both international artists and the greatest talents from the thriving Swedish and Nordic music scenes.
Previous editions of Sónar Stockholm had taken place at the Waterfront centre in the heart of Stockholm, which I personally think was a comfier venue since it was better connected and contained all of the shows under one roof. Sónar att Nobelberget had the SonarLab stage outdoors and due to the cold-late-wintery-weather we are still ¨enjoying¨ here in Stockholm, it made it difficult to stand out there and fully enjoy the amazing performances that took place on it. The other stages were indoors, under high industrial ceilings.
This festival loaded up with the trendiest play of lights and had something that I can only describe as a ¨mysterious lighting style¨ where the musicians were only lit from behind during most of the time of their performances – making them appear as dark silhouettes in front of screens and light beams.
Youth Lagoon delivered a thrilling performance and my respect goes to Trevor Powers, their front man, who right after he came up on stage expressed that he was feeling a bit under the weather and still the band came out to fulfil their show. Powers said about not feeling so good: “Eating Burger King and drinking whiskey every day is definitely not good”.
Unfortunately that was not the case of Annie Mac and Mura Massa, who unfortunately had to cancel their shows due to illness. They were both replaced by Dorisburg and Sameblod respectively, talents that definitely filled up the space the missing artist had left vacant.
Sweden’s very own Ida Engberg received a lot of clapping and cheering from the audience. Maya Yane Coles, The Black Madonna and Squarepusher had the public putting their hands together for them as well. This last one together with Onetronix Point Never had the best video and CGI projections during the festival, they both had huge screens behind them on stage, one always loves a little extra kick in the experience by mixing good music and the perfect light and projections playing along with it.
Overall, Sónar was quite a good way to kickstart the music festival year in a city that loves music in all its forms. See you next year Sónar!
