Best of the Tiny Fonts is a recurring feature in which our staff handpick the must-see smaller acts at all the major festivals.
Take a look at the lineup of 2017’s Primavera Sound Festival, taking place this weekend in Barcelona, and it’s easy to get lost in the big names. There’s Arcade Fire gearing up for their first big show of the year. There are of-the-moment critical darlings like Bon Iver, The xx, Solange, and Run the Jewels ready to bring a disparate array of performance styles and sounds to the festival’s many stages. They might have lost what would have been Frank Ocean’s first show in support of Blonde, but they’ve added an appearance from Jamie xx to sooth the wounds. And there are legends galore, with Slayer, Van Morrison, The Magnetic Fields (performing their latest, 50 Song Memoir), and Descendents as just a sampling of the many industry titans that the fest has corralled.
But what about the lesser known artists on the bill? Sure, it might be hard to make time for everyone, unless you truly get in the spirit of things and take in the whole range of programming, which runs from the afternoon until about 6 AM. But for most of us mere mortals, we’ll have to make some big decisions about what artists to make time for and which ones to skip. CoS has studied the Primavera offerings and come up with the following 10 artists that haven’t quite yet reached marquee status. Sure, it might mean missing something a little more familiar to take them in (or staying up until dawn), but we’re convinced that these acts are worth the trouble.
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