Primal Scream
18th November 2008
The Savoy, Cork
Heineken Green Spheres
Can I get my gripe out of the way first? What is the purpose in everyone in the audience being issued with not just a wrist band but also a thingy to hang around your neck with straps and clasps? What is wrong with the humble ink stamp? How much does it cost to put these things together and what do the trees have to say about it? The free beer on arrival was lovely, don’t get me wrong, but why were you left carting around all these gimmicks for the evening? Can you use them again later? And for what? It appears to be an almighty waste of resources to my mind.
But onwards to the gig.
9pm sharp, a band of six walks out on to the stage. For the life of me, I have no idea what they’re called – I could find their name written nowhere and the (apparent) reverb on the mic meant that I couldn’t catch the name when it was said but I can tell you that they were from Newcastle and consisted of a drum kit, a keyboard, four guitars and one Ian Brown lookalike. (Nice of him to drop by.) This was a night of retro. As we waited for the gig to start, the background music was hippy-dippy ‘60s music (Mamas & Papas and their ilk), the screen at the break was showing the trailer for an alien horror film from the 1950s (over and over and over – the roadies were more interesting) and these guys were covering the ‘90s (with a slightly touchy-feely, slightly anthemic, edge of the psychedelic with the almost obligatory instrumentals which built and built and built only to wind down again) rock genre rather nicely. Like I said, no idea who they were at the time (according to Primal Scream’s myspace, they were Detriot Social Club) but I liked them. They rehashed what was milling around in the early ‘90s but they did it well and, as any cold-pizza-for-breakfast connoisseur knows, a revisit to something good isn’t a bad way to start the day, or a gig even.
They were gone at 9:30 pm sharp and, after an entertaining half hour with the road crew, where I was very happy having found a heat source and was having my knees gently toasted while we waited, and the stage was stripped, dressed and made ready by some very efficient crew members, Primal Scream entered with the knock-kneed dervish that is Bobby Gillespie marionetting out last at precisely 10:00pm (you gotta love the punctuality). Dubbed ‘the oldest man in rock’, it’s obvious it’s purely a chronological description as he and the rest of the equally apparently aging band members put more energy into the performance than you might be used to seeing, what with Mr Gillespie spinning and his cohorts striding and jumping around the stage. By the bye, they’d evidently had a confab before they came out as they were themed – a red/black colour scheme with everyone in skinny jeans and pointy shoes. Hey, who cares, it worked. And the crowd loved them.
As you must already know, “Screamadelica”, their third album put them firmly on the map in 1991 and they maintained their prominence for some time after that, dropping pretty much from the radar mid-90s, but they have been recording fairly steadily over the years and have a surprising nine studio albums to their record, the most recent being this year’s “Beautiful Future”. Their sound has changed over the years certainly but elements of it remain bedded in the past, as the pseudo-punkish leanings of the early part of the set indicate, while at the same time experimenting with what’s around them at any given time. Not that this would worry this young audience as it’s all new to them. For example, a rousing “Jailbird Wine” did not raise a cheer for the old and familiar from the crowd, possibly because they may not have heard it before? It’s good to see longevity in performers. For one thing, getting your parents to approve a career as a rock star becomes easier when the bands that they grew up with are still treading the boards. For another, it’s really good to see if/how a group matures and develops their sound. And, considering it’s more than 15 years since they played the City Hall, these guys have been knocking around a long, long time.
Primal Scream: Bobby Gillespie, Andrew Innes, Mani, Martin Duffy, Darrin Mooney
