Brighton Dome, November 21
THE fear when going to see as venerable a live act as Primal Scream is where they draw the line between giving fans what they want and keeping themselves entertained.
For every Thom Yorke huffing about chants for Creep and launching into a 12-minute white noise experiment instead, there is a paying-for-the-fifth-divorce churn of the old hits by an ageing star phoning it in.
From the first strains of Don’t Fight It, Feel It as the willowy figure of Bobby Gillespie first appears silhouetted against the bright purple backdrop, it’s clear Primal Scream have no aversion to their own hits.
As to whether they are actually enjoying it, Gillespie gives little away to start with but by the time he is conducting a euphoric crowd belting back the chorus of Movin’ Up he is beaming like a Glaswegian cat.
Pork pie-hatted guitarist Andrew Innes similarly seems to be having a ball from the start as he shares the limelight with Gillespie while keyboardist Martin Duffy and the most recent addition to the band, bassist Simone Butler, mainly keep in the shadows.
It is Gillespie, though, who dominates everything.
He is a proper frontman, exuding confidence and cool. I mean, who actually looks good with maracas?
Their setlist highlights the range of their back catalogue but it was their anthemic early 90s hit Loaded that really lifted the roof off.
It was notable that Gillespie actually had very little to do during the number, mainly acting as a conductor to the whooping crowd.
A three-song encore felt slightly padded to me, with the energy starting to dip a little during an overlong version of Come Together but ended on a high with the peerless Rocks.
They gave us what we came for.
We wanted to have a good time, we wanted to have a party….
James Wallin
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