Sonar Comes to Town.

Crisis? What Crisis? Barcelona is buzzing today, with loads of tourists in and around the old town and many of them have come not just for the sunshine, but for the biggest Electronic Music Festival of the early summer - Sonar.



An expected 80,000 revellers are due to hit the Catalan Capital to banish those end-of-term blues, and bring in the summer (if a little early) with a bang. This year's event has some of the usual big names, with Grace Jones, Orbital and Richie Hawtin amongst the relative unknowns that everyone will be talking about when they leave.

As well as sonar Radio via the Sonar website, awdio is broadcasting Sonar Live all weekend, too. This year's SonarMatica seesions include the great Sonar for Kids session, and the amazing-looking reactable - watch the video for an idea which is impossible to explain without having a few beers first! All in all, it looks to be another great year for Sonar - it's 16th edition - which keeps on surprising.

Check out these Old Town apartments, close to the Sonar by Day events and ideal for groups of friends or families. And for a heads up on the rest of the city, see this great Barcelona Guide.

Sonar is Back - and for Kids!

The second week of June is a great time. The weather is usually great (not too hot yet, not too humid, but reliable enough to forget jackets and coats), the city is buzzing with full terraces and newly-found bars with happy hours and great tapas, and exams have just finished in universities around Europe, so that can mean only 1 thing - time to party.



For years in Barcelona, the Sonar Music Festival has been providing the escape to hedonism for the weekend, attracting visitors and artists from around the world. The festival is usually split up into 2 parts - Day and Night. Sonar by Day is located in Barcelona's Old Town Raval quarters, in and around the CCCB and the Night is usually at Gran Via 2 - an exhibition space slightly outside the city centre, where people can make as much noise as they want without the neighbours complaining. Well, this year, they've gone one better - they're involving the kids!


Sonar Kids is a great new idea to involve the musicians of the future in Sonar. The idea is that the kids can come along and experiment in various workshops which are completely geared towards the kids. So you can attend the Hip Hop workshop and learn how to dance a face-off like Run DMC Jason Nevins cool vid, or you can attend the DJ workshop and get the basics about spinning the wheels or scratching. There's a cool beatbox workshop, Illustration workshop (no graffiti one surprisingly!), as well as felt masks, Finger skating, Medieval armour and much more.


Everything will be kicking off on the Sunday 21st June (with a few heavy heads from the parents, no doubt) and the website is quick to point out that they will be taking children's tolerance to raised levels of noise into consideration, too. Sensible.

As for the festival itself, it looks like being another stellar year, and I'm a little early in commenting on the line up this year, and usually leave it till later in the year, but I saw the Kids angle and loved it. Headliners this year include Orbital, Grace Jones, Mujava, Joker, Crookers, Fever Ray and many others already lined up. Things might change from now until June, so I'll keep you posted.

If you're coming to Barcelona for the festival, I can highly reccomend renting Barcelona apartments for the stay. In fact, looking for apartments for Sonar 2009 is a great way to save money and be close to all the action, too.