Primal Scream, Brixton Academy, gig review: Jagger-esque swagger and gospel-style euphoria

The Glaswegian band storm through a set balancing old and new

(ddp-rex-Shutterstock)

Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie is a man of few words - and most of his short sentences are punctuated with 'baby' - but that doesn’t matter a jot to the eager crowd at Brixton academy tonight.

Sure, the other members are present and correct but the audience - a majority of thirty and forty-somethings with a handful of younger followers - are under his spell from the second he strides out in his red bootleg suit until the end. Often his stare and Jagger-esque swagger are enough to tease out their screams. And it's is his face that's on the cover of their latest synth-pop-inspired album Chaosmosis, after all.

The band start off as they hope to go on with Movin’ On Up. Gillespie asking if they’re “ready to testify” immediately sends the audience into gospel-style euphoria: hands waving in the air and singing along word-for-word.

Next is Where The Lights Get In, a duet with an absent Sky Ferreira from their latest album. The lights dim to red and fluorescent light bars twitch in the background to signal that the band has entered electropop territory. This, like other Chaosmosis offerings (Feeling like) A Demon Again, Golden Rope and 100% or Nothing don’t quite hold crowd like the classic, rockier tracks or Hacienda-era dancier numbers. Still, the devoted fans are more than happy to dance along as they wait patiently for the bigger hits.

And when they do come, Primal Scream are stunning. After thirty years, their solid back-catalogue still sparkles and seem no less of a pleasure for the band to perform. Throbbing tracks like 'Shoot Speed / Kill Light' and 'Swastika Eyes' for 2000’s XTRMNTR are a reminder of when the band hit the synth-rock sweet spot in the early noughties. This combination of dance and rock is after all what set them apart so many decades ago. Seeing the shift in the audience’s reaction and they jump, arms raised, Gillespie becomes playful, shakes his maracas during the former song and sparking a ripple of arms through the crowd before blowing a kiss.

From that moment, it’s back-to-back hits and nineties nostalgia - save for 2006’s anomalous Country Girl which is followed by Come to Together, a track which feels loaded with new poignancy at the end of 2016 and further unites the voices of the crowd. The encore 'Rocks Off' keeps them jumping from front to back. Relishing the attention, Gillespie lingers on-stage after the other members file off and “screams London, you’re beautiful!” to the adoring fans. When they ditch the new songs they are at their best, and prove why they have endured. No need for twinkly neon lights to coax the crowd’s attention. No theatrics, or chit-chat. Just the band bashing out hit after hit - exactly, it seems, how the truly satisfied crowd want them to.