Pearl Jam are very aware of what it means to headline a festival with almost 60,000 people. They have the resources and the songs, they excel in their craft and maintain their edge after over 30 years. With a bottle of red wine at the foot of the microphone and a permanent smile, they offered a fantastic concert at the Mad Cool festival, a concert to like and be liked that started with a bunch of classics elevated to anthem status: 'Why Go' incandescent, 'Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town', and 'Given to Fly'.
Eddie Vedder, full of voice and intensity and overflowing with charisma, was the main protagonist, but in such a classic rock group, intertwined guitars are a key element, and this is where Stone Gossard shines differentially, an instrumentalist of free expressiveness, very sophisticated in all his resources, in contrast to the more showy and flashy Mike McCready, unleashed for example in 'Even Flow', more anchored in the clichés of old rock that was supposed to bury 'grunge'.
The last great survivors of their generation, Pearl Jam's effort on this warm Madrid night has been not to sound like a relic, not to seem like a museum piece parading around the world in glass cases, but to be the living bearers of a grand legacy to show and share. Their legacy is their attitude and their indestructible songs like 'Daughter', the cathartic 'Black', 'Do The Evolution', or 'Better Man', but it is also the very concept of rock, a music that has been steadily declining in popularity for years that they reclaim as a universal truth.
At Mad Cool, they delivered a breathtaking concert in 2018 and continue to be a beloved group in Madrid, where this Thursday they performed for the fifth time in three decades (Vedder spoke a lot in Spanish, recalled their first visit to the Revolver venue in 1992, and dedicated songs to his "friend" Javier Bardem and his "hero" Miguel Ríos). There were inconsequential songs from their recent new album, 'Dark Matter', and giant karaoke moments like 'Alive', towards the end.
Pearl Jam had just performed two concerts in Barcelona over the weekend, where the singer confessed to having had "a near-death experience." It was last week when the Seattle group had to cancel three concerts. "It was terrifying. It felt like bronchitis, as if I couldn't breathe and wouldn't make it through the night," explained the singer at the Palau Sant Jordi in a moment captured by hundreds of fans and went viral.
And speaking of going viral, hours earlier a crowd in front of the stage where Keane was resting peacefully, swaying more than dancing, chatting, taking a sip, checking WhatsApp, and applauding a bit between songs. They were having a pleasant time until suddenly, the piano chords of 'Somewhere Only We Know' started playing, everyone recognized the song, and there was an instant excitement with little screams, while a thousand mobile phone screens emerged from the crowd to start recording (vertically).
'Somewhere Only We Know' was one of the songs that propelled Keane to stardom exactly 20 years ago. The determined British pop-rock group achieved fabulous success in 2004 not only in the UK but worldwide, and since then has continued to record and play this white sneakers, rosy-cheeked, and pitiminí harmony pop-rock, a friendly music that until last year moved their most loyal audience. Keane has been the kind of likable and steady group that sees their fans grow with them but doesn't attract new fans. And just when it seemed like they would end up playing on cruises, last year that song that had been an anthem for their generation was discovered by a new generation, who made it their own on TikTok and Instagram. And all of this explains why Keane, the old and somewhat outdated Keane, performed tonight on one of the main stages at Mad Cool in front of several tens of thousands of people singing "Oh, simple thing, where have you gone? I'm getting old, and I need something to rely ooooooon".
The British band Keane, this Thursday at Mad Cool.Javier Barbancho
Keane's case is not an isolated incident at the Madrid festival, which features numerous examples of bands launched to fame from TikTok. This Thursday, the concert of the British Michael Kiwanuka was also enjoyed. The talented guitarist and singer skillfully composed retro-style songs that evoked the sound of the 70s like an unrecoverable arcadia. It's not the type of music usually associated with a Chinese social media viral hit, but Kiwanuka is also a phenomenon on social media, especially with the song 'Cold Little Heart', which gained popularity as the main song of the HBO Max series 'Big Little Lies'.
We know that song consumption trends on TikTok and Instagram have acquired enormous influence in the music industry in recent years. Many festivals have incorporated 'big data' analysis into their lineup creation process using well-established tools like Chartmetric, which not only allows for anticipating trends but also differentiating between nationalities and age groups of listeners, helping an artistically sensitive artistic director select groups and artists that resonate best with their target audience. And one of the target audiences of Mad Cool, a festival that receives significant direct subsidies from the Community of Madrid and the City Council (¤900,000 and ¤200,000 in 2024, respectively), are young Europeans, who represent about a third of the attendees.
This Thursday, we witnessed another example of the influence of screens on the Mad Cool lineup with The Heavy and the rockers Greta Van Fleet yet to perform, but it is likely that their repertoire will include 'You're The One', another TikTok phenomenon.
The social media platform known for cute dances has also been crucial for one of the most emblematic bands of the 90s, The Smashing Pumpkins, who performed at Mad Cool on Wednesday night. Their new guitarist, Kiki Wong, was chosen after a long selection process among the 10,000 people who applied for the job offer from the Chicago group. Besides her technical and artistic qualities, Miss Wong is a hard rock 'influencer' with 1.3 million followers on TikTok: Billy Corgan's group only has 520,000.
Also on Wednesday, the festival featured many other social phenomena like singer-songwriter Tom Odell, famous for 'Another Love'; James Arthur, whose 'Say You Won't Let Go' also spread like a plush pandemic; or the meme singer Sexyy Red. And think about the paradigmatic case of Claudia León, who only has 20,000 meager monthly listeners on Spotify but is a huge sensation on TikTok.