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REVIEW: PRIMAL SCREAM AT CARDIFF SOLUS (20/06/11)

There is a slight misconception that Screamadelica was warmly embraced by all and sundry when it was released. There was in fact still a large proportion of Primal Scream fans who were shy and retiring indie types, rarely seen outdoors, save for when the latest Sarah Records release hit the shops. Most of these were females of around 16, all saving their virginities for Bobby G. This newly reshaped version of Primal Scream would have been quite alien to them. Despite the record being released in 1991, most of them probably still thought acid house was a place you went to buy drugs. Which I suppose it was really. For the chance to meet their skinny saviour though, it didn’t matter so much what the background music was, so most just went along with it.

The slight problem I’ve always had is, despite all the accolades, I’ve never been 100% sure if it is a fully fledged classic album. There are some astonishingly good stand-out tracks – particularly Weatherall’s textbook-shredding reappraisal of Come Together (which is in fact, my favourite track of all time) – but also a few duff ones in my view (mostly the slower “chilled” numbers).

Well, anyway, here we are, 20 years later with the now familiar “anniversary tour.” If the album itself breaks boundaries, this type of tour has become depressingly run-of-the-mill. There is the additional bonus of the also familiar £100 special edition version of the LP (who buys these vile artefacts?). Could Primal Scream somehow make something more of the actual live experience?

Despite a little cynicism, I had been looking forward to this gig a great deal, and the band did not disappoint, with a spectacularly entertaining show. They jiggled the tracklisting, which I had not anticipated, and which confused me a little as I’d been listening to the album a lot in the weeks leading up. I think they possibly could have kept the order the same as the record, but it did mean that probably the 3 strongest tracks were saved to the end. These being Higher Than The Sun, which I think is acknowledged to be the band’s favourite song on the album, and which Bobby dedicated to Alan McGee, the former Creation label boss who has recently moved to South Wales, Loaded of course, in its full length glory, and the grand finale, Come Together.

There were some great animated backdrops – Higher Than The Sun ¬– had a psychedelic sun which got closer as the track progressed (pleasing to anyone celebrating the solstice on an overcast night); Shine Like Stars featured, you guessed it, stars, but all the backdrops were pretty psychedelic, with rainbow colours, and eyes featuring a lot.

The Primal Scream live experience is a slightly odd one in some respects, as they’re essentially a rock band, so when they’re playing along to the dance tracks, it is slightly incongruous. Somehow it fits together, and the more synth-dependent songs still sound fantastic – the strobes come on for Don’t Fight It, Feel It – and people get to work dancing like loonies, just as if it was back in the day!

The star of this show though, by a country mile, is Bobby Gillespie himself. He always seems to wear black trousers and shirt, and so looks like a professional showman. He gets completely involved in the whole gig, dancing on the monitors, clapping in his unforgettable great big hands in the air way. The crowd are extremely responsive and reciprocal. He can be extremely soulful, such as during an excellent rendition of Damaged, but he also does it all his own way, sometimes, probably deliberately, not singing certain sections correctly! As Come Together, which included the insertion of the original mix into the remix (!) drew to a close, the rest of the band left the stage, leaving Bobby to lead the crowd in quite a long accapela rendition of the chorus which was pretty moving.

I wasn’t sure if there was to be an encore, but the crowd certainly put a good deal of effort into calling for one, and they came back on to play three favourites from other albums – Country Girl, Jailbird, and Rocks.

One of the best tricks ever pulled by a band was Primal Scream’s recruiting of Mani on bass (long after Screamadelica was originally released of course). It’s kind of like Man Utd, as if they weren’t good enough, deciding to sign Messi! Not that Mani ever seems to need to do all that much for this band, with no particularly complicated bass-lines. He seems to happily take a back seat to main man Bobby. Rocks featured a longer than usual drum intro which was very reminiscent of the drum intro to the Roses’ I Am The Resurrection. I did a sort of air guitar as if I was playing the bass line, and looked over at Mani wondering if he would lead into it (which of course he wouldn’t). I thought I saw a smile, but this could have been about anything!

I had 3 Primal Scream records with me that I wanted to get signed, and I was fairly sure that if I left just before the end of the encore, I might catch the band as they walked off-stage, but the hedonist in me could not resist instead staying to hear the very last of the last song!

Overall, I think the band carried off their version of the album rendition extremely well. The simple fact that the gig itself was great fun for all was testimony to this. It was not a sell-out, and was moved from the University’s larger Great Hall to the Solus venue, but this made it more intimate, and anyone who missed this definitely missed out. As far as the record itself is concerned, I actually probably like it even more now than when it was originally released. The Scream still rock, The Scream still ooze soul, The Scream are still sexy!

Words: Nick Fisk

by 247 Magazine