LIVE REPORT: Blondie, SPRINTS, Rels B and Las Odio stun on the opening day of Mallorca Live

Day one of Mallorca Live and it’s cold, overcast and generally miserable.

Actually, no, it’s 26°, cloudless and generally guaranteed to piss off anybody reading this in shivery old Ireland.

It’s very different from 48 hours ago when a freak storm caused flash flooding at nearby Palma Airport, which is kind of ironic seeing as this Magaluf three-dayer is taking place in a decommissioned aqua park.

The sun is back with a vengeance, though, as Uruguayan superstars - not a sentence I've written before - No Te Va Gustar kick the Main Stage action off.

I've got “INXS with Latino rhythms and shit loads of brass” in my notes and I'm sticking with it! They've also got a song that sounds like The Specials jamming with The Prodigy and Van Morrison. Well, sort of!

I wouldn't normally be so ungallant as to mention a lady's age, but at 78 Debbie Harry remains the epitome of glacial rock 'n' roll cool.

Resplendent in a vintage Punk magazine t-shirt and a black and white striped jacket that nods to Blondie's breakthrough Parallel Lines album, she makes her intentions clear when she tells the adoring crowd, "There's serious business happening up here tonight!"

With Chris Stein forced to retire from touring due to poor health, the only other founder member on stage with her is Clem Burke whose reputation as the hardest hitter of the drums in the world... ever! also endures.

Like Keith Moon, Charlie Watts and the other British tubthumpers he worshipped from afar growing up, Clem's the powerhouse that drives the rest of the band.

Not having a new album to plug, it's a hits heavy Blondie tonight with the likes of 'One Way Or Another',' Hanging On The Telephone', 'Sunday Girl' and 'Call Me' still sounding as life-affirmingly urgent as they did back in the day.

Adding some extra bollocks to proceedings is Glen Matlock, the ex-Pistol who's been their touring bassist since 2022 and is clearly having a blast being part of a stadium-filling group again.

Those halcyon CBGGs days of yore are recalled with the doo wop-y 'In The Flesh' and 'X Offender', which provided Madonna with at least some of her blueprint.

Punk gives way to funk on 'Rapture', the 1981 Blondie hit that helped propel hip hop into the mainstream. Ms. Harry was never going to out-rhyme the Bronx warriors it champions, but four decades on it still makes you want to shake your tail feathers.

Listening to this and their shimmering foray into disco, 'Heart Of Glass', you appreciate how rapid Blondie's musical evolution was during their hitmaking years.

By the time the closing 'Dreaming' comes around, there's no doubt in anyone's mind that we've been in the presence (dear) of rock royalty.

Ms. Harry would doubtless approve of the riot grrrl-inclined Las Odio over on the tiny Radio 3 stage. Equal parts Shonen Knife, The Ramones and the B52s, the Madrid four-piece are the sort of band Quentin Tarantino would have on his soundtracks if he were still making films.

A frantic round of speed gigging also introduces us to Julia Colom who’s steeped in Mallorcan tonara folk tradition but still manages to sound thoroughly modern: Funzo and Baby Loud who dress like Compton gangsters but make an auto-tuned pop noise that elicits squeals of approval from the teenage members of the 20,000-strong crowd: Rocio Saiz, a Madrid singer, actor and LGBTQI+ activist whose ‘Si Manana Me Muero, Te Habré Dicho Que Te Quiero’ - 'If I Die Tomorrow, I Will Have Told You That I Love You’ - is a Euro party banger of epic proportions; and Danni Fernandez (not the former Barcelona midfielder) who's overcome a dodgy boy band and Eurovision past to become the Iberian Harry Styles.

Every festival bill needs some bonkers nosebleed techno and tonight it's provided by Catalunyan 'synthetic punk' duo La Elite who sound like IDLES on steroids - and ketamine. It's fast, very furious and politically charged with lyrical references to Europe's lurch to the right in the recent EU elections. One for an Irish dance tent methinks.

Getting a hero's welcome is Rels B (pictured above), a local rapper who's gone gangbusters in South America with his chilled pop 'n' Flamenco beats and poster boy good looks.

Appalling name or not, the very male, middle-aged and apparently heterosexual Love Of Lesbian are a slick AOR outfit whose ‘Club De Fans De John Boy’ namechecks Dublin - why, I have no idea - and either by design or accident sound like Crowded House on Spanish holiday.

Having been a Hot Press Hot For... pick way back in 2020 we're delighted to see SPRINTS getting the international recognition that we always knew would come their way.

Despite having had only a few weeks to bed in a new guitarist following Colm O'Reilly's departure, the Dubliners are in devastating form as they close out the Endesa stage tonight.

Six months of constant touring means that they’re tighter than the duck’s proverbial and able to win crowds over with ease, which despite the lateness of the hour - Mallorca Live keeps on rolling till 6am! - they instantly do tonight. The likes of 'Adore Adore Adore', 'Delia Smith' and 'Literary Mind' sound HUGE and Karla Chubb has truly mastered the art of going from a whisper to a scream.

The ladies and gentlemen of the Spanish press I talk to afterwards are blown away, although strong words are had when one of them remarks that, "There are so many great British bands at the moment." Grrrrrr!!!!

STUART CLARK