Live Review: Primal Scream – Usher Hall

Primal Scream thrill Edinburgh with career spanning set of hits.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

So went the song right before Primal Scream took to the stage in Edinburgh, as part of the tour to promote Come Ahead.

And it’s not wrong. The planet is in a bit of a mixed-up mess just now, and every now and again we need a bit of escapism in the form of musical giants.

And there aren’t many as big as The Scream, whose legacy casts a large shadow over music. They’re pioneers who’ve dabbled in just about everything you can think of – and that’s just musical genres.

The group sauntered on stage looking like they’d come back from a Saturday night while wearing their Sunday best.

Bobby Gillespie, the band’s lead singer, was particularly dapper in a white suit jacket. Maybe they’d been to a casino and were pushing all their chips to the middle of the table.

They had to manoeuvre slightly around Come Ahead, last year’s album that catapulted them back into the charts and the spotlight.

For me, it’s a dizzying taunting of style that stood out as one of my favourite releases from the past twelve months. The thing is, it’s not quite yet at the heights of the material that made them as adorned as they are.

But there are times it hits the mark. ‘Ready to Go Home’ feels like a tip of the hat to Screamadelica while the vitriol of ‘Deep Dark Waters’ gripped, with bang-up-to-date powerful images being displayed behind the band.

Trainspotting author, pal of the band, and fellow rebel Irvine Welsh got a cheeky dedication before ‘Medication’ – one that would’ve made the writer smile.

“One singer, one song,” commanded Gillespie as he tried to get the crowd’s attention during a quiet moment.

And even though they’ve had some major talent through the years, when you think of Primal Scream, you automatically visualise two things: the Screamadelica logo, which adorns T-shirts all over the world, and Gillespie himself.

The tall, gangly frontman – all Jagger-shaking hips and Dylan thought-provoking lips – is up there with the most memorable characters in recent British music. A man with a confidence born from belief in his own ability, and that of his bandmates.

You can forgive him for being over-indulgent. Songs might not outstay their welcome, but they’re far longer than you’d expect. And it takes a while for the crowd to get going and fully appreciate it. Initially, it felt more like a Lothian Road Lull than a Barrowlands Bounce.

But something happened. Gillespie took off his jacket and brought out the maracas, and he went full Benjamin Button on the crowd – seemingly de-ageing before our eyes as soon as ‘Loaded’ announced its arrival.

The biting ‘Swastika Eyes’ burned into the set, as relevant today as it was all those years ago.

‘Movin’ On Up’ started as a blue-tinged rock-out before it became a blissed-out anthem. ‘Country Girl’ got everyone dancing.

As ‘Come Together’ came to a close, Gillespie serenaded the audience with lyrics from ‘Suspicious Minds’. This was his Elvis moment.

They finished with ‘Rocks’ – a song that shouldn’t work. It’s too obvious, too dumb. But it does work, and it does so in spectacular fashion, with the entire standing section transformed into a throng of jumping bodies.

“We love you,” said Bobby Gillespie as the band left the stage in front of a sweat-covered crowd.

The feeling’s mutual.