Suicide Draw Raves From Nick Cave and Wayne Coyne at Primavera Sound

The biggest crowds at Barcelona's Primavera Sound on Thursday were, of course, for San Miguel stage headliners Grinderman and the Flaming Lips. But those two acts were most excited about the band that played between them on the smaller Ray Ban stage. "Everybody go and see Suicide now," Nick Cave commanded before the final song of Grinderman's obliterating, wolfish set, adding that the pioneering New York City duo were "the reason we're all doing this."

Later, during the Lips' show, frontman Wayne Coyne referred to Suicide as "cosmic brothers," while his bandmate Steven Drozd had already tweeted excitedly about spending time with Alan Vega earlier this week. The electronic duo -- singer Vega and keyboardist/drum machinist Martin Rev -- played the loudest show your Spinner correspondent has ever seen -- or more accurately, heard -- this side of My Bloody Valentine.

The chest-rattling low end of Rev's rhythm track created its own breeze, and probably could have performed CPR if needed. At an astonishing 72 years old (he turns 73 in June), the watch-capped, sunglassed Vega looks like a Jewish hipster Kim Jong-Il, so cool he has his own cigarette (and lyric sheet) roadie, his psycho blues howl still in terrifying form (its influence on Cave is clear).

While Vega stalked the stage, Rev, in a sleeveless T-shirt and 'Tron'-like neon blue-trimmed glasses, attacked his synthesizers, often pounding several keys at once with his entire fist.

As advertised, the set consisted of the band's 1977 self-titled album, and while its intensity and volume clearly did drive people into the arms of Interpol or Caribou (playing at the same time, as were, to their apparent regret, Das Racist, those who stuck around greeted the album's centerpiece, the harrowing 10-minute murder/suicide saga 'Frankie Teardrop,' as if it was a long-awaited hit.

And they even got an encore -- the show concluded with 1979's 'Dream Baby Dream,' which might well now be Suicide's best-known song thanks to another famous fan: Bruce Springsteen, who covered it live for several years and then released it as a single in 2008.