Primal Scream are stone-cold legends of British music. From fusing rock-and-roll with the burgeoning acid-house scene to delirious effect on 1991’s masterpiece Screamadelica, through the brash vitriol and anger of 2000’s XTRMNTR and the pop-flecked Chaosmosis, their restlessness and ability to wrap disparate genres around their inimitable core of emotionally weighty songwriting has secured their position as one of the most vital bands of their generation...
Tonight Primal Scream are at our very own Rock City, touring their excellent 12th LP Come Ahead and promising big things to the impressively eclectic (judging by the band T-shirts on show) sold-out crowd. Support comes from the formidable Baxter Dury.
Throwing his suit jacket open like a back alley hustler and cavorting his way across the stage, his set morphs from the pithy post-punk simplicity of Almond Milk to the danceable, beat-driven madness of Alberone. His wry observational lyrics, screamed effing-and-jeffing and winning smirk coalesce into a set that energises the crowd and feels almost like a headline gig in itself.
Emerging to strains of What the World Needs Now, is Love, Primal Scream take their positions. Clad in a sharp white tux jacket, Bobby Gillespie immediately owns the stage. His charisma is magnetic, his voice strong and his strut honed by decades of performing as the band blast through a savage opening salvo of Don’t Fight it, Feel It, Love Insurrection and Jailbird. The audience are immediately besotted.
The kick drum behind Bobby is adorned with the photo of his father - the much-loved trade unionist Bob Gillespie, who died in 2023 - from the artwork of Come Ahead. The image’s presence encapsulates the mix of the political and the very personal; a duality that has been at the core of Primal Scream since their inception and is weaved into this latest album.
These new songs sit neatly beside tracks taken from their decades-long career, all cohered by the energy of the band’s performance tonight. Eminently danceable, the verve and vigour of the music serve as excellent foils for the wry, life-worn lyrics that sit atop.
It’s when the band arrive at the classic Loaded, that the set reaches escape velocity. Originally produced by Andrew Weatherall, the opening vocal samples receive rapturous applause, and the atmosphere becomes that bit more febrile, that bit more wild.
This is followed by a hectic Swastika Eyes, an utterly joyous Movin’ On Up and the anthemic Country Girl. Any one of these songs would be an ecstatic climax to another band’s set. To hear them one after the other borders on becoming a religious experience.
It’s fitting then, that another all-timer, Come Together, is the penultimate song. The crowd is in full voice as they belt out the refrain "Come Together as one" to a beaming Bobby - his jacket long gone now, hair a little messier - who points the mic outward to the crowd.
The set closes with Rocks, which lays out a typically bleak picture of life and the immutability of certain aspects of it - "Ain’t no use in prayin' / That’s the way it's stayin', baby" - before its immense chorus makes an impassioned call to hedonism despite it: "Get your rocks off honey".
Rock City erupts into pandemonium. The floor pounded by thousands of feet jumping in unison, throats hoarse from the mass singalong. As the band leave the stage, glee written across their faces, the energy they leave behind is a powerful reminder that the best retort to a harsh world is often these primal screams of communion and the vital presence of live music as a means of achieving it.
Primal Scream performed at Rock City on 12th April 2025, with support from Baxter Dury.
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