The last time I saw Primal Scream play live I didn't have a very good time and I wasn't really in a rush to go back for more. The band have been touring XTRMNTR recently, an album released in January 2000 and one that is the flipside of Screamadelica, an inversion of the 1991 album's blissed out celebration and fusion of acid house and rock 'n' roll. XTRMNTR was made at a time when the band were at the peak of their powers as a live act, having been joined by Mani on bass, Kevin Shields on guitar and pedals, with contributions from The Chemical Brothers and Bernard Sumner and various producers at the control desk- Brendan Lynch, David Holmes, Jagz Kooner, Hugo Nicolson and Dan The Automator.
Although XTRMNTR came out prior to the geopolitical messes of the 00s it seems to prefigure them, a squally, noisy, ragged, fucked up but highly focused album. It's one that I played a lot back in 2000 and showed the band as forward thinking and open minded again after their detour into Stonesy rock 'n' roll in the mid- 90s, embracing the futurism of noisy guitar rock cut and shut with hip hop and electronic/ industrial. They'd got back on track with 1997's Vanishing Point and then came XTRMNTR. They pitched up in Manchester last weekend for two nights at New Century Hall, a venue at which I've not seen a bad gig to date.
I wasn't aware that they were being supported by Escape- Ism and was disappointed to arrive at NCH to see Escape- Ism t- shirts on the merch stand and Ian Svenonius talking to fans by the merch desk. Their album last year, Charge Of The Love Brigade, was one of my favourites so it was galling to miss an opportunity to see them play songs from it. Always check who the support are is my takeaway from this error. I also missed the opportunity to say hello to Svenonius as he disappeared again just before the lights went down.
Primal Scream arrived on stage and played XTRMNTR in full, in order. The only two surviving members from the late 80s are Bobby and Andrew Innes but they have benefited from the recruitment to the ranks of Sabres Of Paradise guitarist Phil Mossman on bass. All in black and wearing a hat he brings not just some style to the frontline but some punch and power to the bass playing. Kicking in with the mutant electro noise funk of Kill All Hippies, the Linda Manz Out Of The Blue sample loud and clear, they show they mean business, all rough edges and distortion and sneery fury. Accelerator is The Stooges compressed and overloaded through an FX pedal and Exterminator sounds huge, gnarly and messy.
Swastika Eyes is played twice (as on the album), once in the Jagz Kooner guitar version, Phil's bass and the twin guitarists creating a racket and again later in The Chemical Brothers version- the second one is possibly the highlight of the night, lights flashing, films and images projected behind them, the turbo Chemicals synths crossed with guitars punching though and Darren Mooney's drumming. It's not subtle. It's not supposed to be. 'End genocide/ End apartheid/ Free Palestine' is left n the screen behind them as the song dies away.
Bobby leaves the stage for the XTRMNTR instrumentals, the seedy, downbeat, cop show jazz of Blood Money and the MBV Arkestra version of If They Move, Kill 'Em. Both are brilliant, the band clearly buzzing off the songs and each other. A broken, ragged Keep Your Dreams also hits deep, Bobby crooning the end line 'I'm going down to the underground/ As deep as I can go'. The XTRMNTR set finishes with Shoot Speed Kill Light, an epic noisy finale, the guitarist in front of us and Phil coaxing the distorted krautrock out of their instruments.
The second half is a mix of hits and deeper cuts. Vanishing Point is dedicated to Mani, the first song he played on with the Scream, and they do their cover of I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time, 60s garage rock originally by The Third Bardot that came out as a Scream B-side back in 2000.
I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time
They do I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have, a genuine surprise- I don't think I've seen them play it live for a very long time. The first time I saw Primal Scream was in July 1989 at Planet X in Liverpool, a tiny basement club and they played it that night, Bobby kneeling on the floor, long hair covering his face, howling into the mic. I wouldn't have guessed seeing them at Planet X that night that I'd be seeing them play live 37 years later, playing one of the same songs. I'm Losing more..., as Bobby points out, is important to them. It became Loaded, which they play next.
They encore with the big hits, crowd pleasing singalongs of Movin' On Up, Rocks and Country Girl, Bobby doing the full on audience participation frontman thing, taking it down and building it up. All good rock 'n' roll fun but for me the real deal was the first half of the night, the scabrous early 21st century, wired and switched on electronic- punk/ noise rock they conjured up in the Bunker on XTRMNTR.
Sounds like a great night. Have seen The Scream in various venues and festivals over the years. As you say, with Mani and Kevin Shields on board at the Brixton Academy in the early 2000s they were quite a formidable live act. Played a very XTRMNTR and Evil Heat heavy set that night.
ReplyDeleteI’m watching them now - much better live than I expected.
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