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Shepherd's Bush Empire
June 20, 2002
Pop
Primal Scream
by Lisa Verrico
Shepherd's Bush Empire
THE oddest pop picture of the year so far has to be the one of Bobby
Gillespie pushing a pram. Oh, and smiling. Since leaving the Jesus and
Mary Chain in the mid-1980s to form Primal Scream, the seriously skinny,
spaced-out singer has embodied the sort of riotous, rock'n'roll
lifestyle that largely died out the day Will Young was born.
Forget the Gallaghers -- their worst antics are mere boyish bad behaviour
compared to the morphine-fuelled, 24 Hour Party People that were
Gillespie and his Glaswegian group.
Now fortysomething fathers, Primal Scream claim to have kicked their
drug habits and stopped socialising. But judging by the lengthy guest
list queue outside Shepherd's Bush Empire last night, they haven't
exactly cut themselves off from their friends. Nor have their longtime
fans been put off by their new-found family values. The place was packed
to beyond capacity with a crowd made up mainly of older men who looked
like their drug days were not long behind them. There were also a few
fashion-conscious girls, but the lack of young blood was worrying.
Primal Scream still like to think of themselves as cutting-edge, but
clearly today's teens would rather be at a garage gig.
Once an indie-dance band, then retro rockers, Primal Scream's latest
incarnation is as an electro-punk outfit. Rather than mellow with age,
recent years have seen them court controversy with songs such as Bomb
The Pentagon, recorded prior to September 11, while their last album,
2000's Xtrmntr, featured tracks with titles such as Kill All Hippies and
Swastika Eyes. Their music has also grown ever more fierce. The four
guitarists lined up alongside Gillespie turned last night's gig into a
barrage of squalling noise, broken only by blasts of techno and the
singer's incomprehensible lyrics. Strobes so strong the crowd could
hardly see the band flashed for the first ten minutes. When they
stopped, Gillespie -- dressed in dark, drainpipe jeans and a white suit
jacket and white shirt -- indulged in some awful dancing, draped himself
round his microphone stand and stumbled across the stage.
The next 90 minutes was a relentless assault on the senses that was both
brilliant and almost unlistenable. Most of the songs came from Xtrmntr,
but there were also old classics like Rocks, which sent the audience
into a frenzy, and a handful of new tracks from the forthcoming album
Evil Heat. The highlight, however, was an extended Swastika Eyes, which
perfectly blended punk rock and edgy, electronic dance music. People at
the front were pogoing, fists were flung in the air and the atmosphere
was that of an old-school rave rather than a rock concert. Primal Scream
proved they can still rock harder than bands half their age. It was a
shame the kids weren't there to see it.
Originally Appeared at The Times Copyright © The Times.
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