There's no hotter pop property in Spain at the moment than Aitana, a Barcelona singer who having well and truly conquered her home country is now turning her attentions to the vast Latin American market and Hispanics in the US who helped Shakira become a global superstar.
A former TV reality show star, her predominantly teenage fans have been queueing since 3pm to get within screaming distance of the stage and, boy, do they scream when their heroine makes her grand arrival with a team of perma-grinning dancers who bend at angles that I didn't think it was possible for the human body to bend.
Choreographed to within an inch of its life, the show starts off in safe Eurovision-y fashion but halfway through switches into X-rated mode with the 24-year old writhing on the floor and upwardly pelvic thrusting in a manner that would probably make even Madonna blush.
Musically, it's super-slick, impeccably executed and clearly connecting with her target audience who jump, cheer, laugh, sigh and cry in all the right places.
Not being part of the target audience, I find it all rather soulless and, production-wise, something akin to what Christina Aguilera was doing twenty years ago.
Pop moves at a furious pace and I'm not sure that Aitana and her somewhat second-hand moves are going to cut it with audiences used to envelope-pushing performances from the likes of Taylor, Billie and Ariana.
Tired too are the Gala ‘Freed From Desire' sample and snatches of Whigfield's ‘Saturday Night' which are woven into last year's monster ‘Las Babys' hit.
Having said that, she'll probably be bigger than J-Lo by year's end.
After all that studied glitz ‘n' glamour, it's nice to get back to gritty Nottingham reality with Sleaford Mods whose opening ‘Jolly Fucker' won't be shifting mega units in Latin America or, indeed, anywhere else. It does, though, meet with the vociferous approval of the thousand or so festival-goers who know every ‘fuck', ‘cunt', ‘twat', ‘shit' and ‘wanker' in their expletive-laden repertoire.
Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn end with their cover of ‘West End Girls', which the Pet Shops Boys – more of whom in a moment – loved so much they remixed it for them.
Which brings us to the truly remarkable Sonido Gallo Negro.
It's not every day that you get to see a Mexican band with a frontman who shakes and bangs the weirdest array of percussive instruments you've ever seen; a seriously cool dude theremin player who conjures up the weirdest of Joe Meek-style space noises; a Farfisa organ-player whose biggest musical influence appears to be the spooky and, indeed, ooky Addams Family theme and a standing-up drummer who belts her kit into the middle of next week.
Add in the matching black uniforms, lots of spoken word samples, trippy devil's head visuals and a curveball cover of Kraftwerk's ‘The Model' and not for the first time this weekend I'm smitten.
I also get to catch ten minutes of Paula Cendejas, a newer pop starlet who's yet to be styled within an inch of her 19-year old life and is all the better for it.
It's probably me projecting but in among the predictable power ballads there's a bit of a Lana Del Rey/Jackie O thing going on.
The talent is raw but you wouldn't bet against her.
If it's new Gallic dance heroes you're after, look no further than The Breeze (below), a Paris-based duo whose ambient tripiness is matched by the woozily narcotic visuals behind them. Festival favourites all over continental Europe, it's time that cousins Guillaume and Jonathan Alric get their derrières over here.
www.tomasmoyaphoto.com
Belle ＆ Sebastian are their usual swoon-some selves – ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap', in particular, is pure pop joy – but, alas, have to be abandoned as we don our sparkly hats (thanks, Nikki!) for what is the aforementioned Pet Shop Boys' first ever Mallorcan performance.
An abridged version of the show they brought to the 3Arena last June, it's a masterclass in how to make the massive feel intimate and, above all, human.
The show starts with the duo stood next to each other on a neon-lit street, which is the perfect backdrop to the opening ‘Suburbia’ whose “Let’s take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight” refrain remains one of modern music’s most inviting invitations.
While Chris Lowe keeps his usual poker face, Neil Tennant is everyone's favourite electropop uncle and seems genuinely delighted to be here.
“This is Dreamworld where Che Guevara and Claude Debussy are behind the bike sheds together and being boring is a sin,” he proclaims as we're treated to the hits, the whole hits and nothing but the hits.
Resplendent in a snow white greatcoat (Neil) and an equally ghostly puffa jacket (Chris) and wearing their Dreamworld face masks, they follow that up with the double-jab of ‘Can You Forgive Her?’ and ‘Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money)’, the latter a reminder that the Pet Shop Boys have spent a goodly part of their career with tongues planted firmly in cheeks.
Numerous outfit and stage set-up changes later, the chaps bid us a fond “adiós” with the eternally evocative ‘West End Girls' and ‘Being Boring', which Messrs. Tennant and Lowe have never been in their lives.
That's me done for Mallorca Live 2024, three-days of smiling, dancing, chain-eating churros and getting the mother of all farmer's tans. You ought to try it yourself sometime!
