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BOBBY GILLESPIE'S THERE
Never mind that the current single is so bad it would even shame shamble-era Gillespie, Primal Scream still have some fire left in their, uh, fireplaces, and are about to do a collection of doings.
6Music has declared Monday Primal Scream Day, with live sessions, lots of not-live sessions and, lets hope, Bobby explaining to Pete Doherty how it's possible to remain alive after your first top-ten album - although the scientific proof today that Screamadelica isn't a better album than Is This It? may lead BBC bosses to cancel Primal Scream Day in favour of a Strokes celebration.
Then, there's a tour, although we're not sure that it's quite as much fun going to see the Primals now that Bobby doesn't look like a man who might fall off the stage at any moment. Anyway, the dates:
Newcastle Academy (November 14)
Aberdeen Music Hall (15)
Glasgow SECC (17)
Manchester Apollo (18)
Birmingham Academy (19)
Liverpool University (21)
Nottingham Rock City (22)
London Hammersmith Apollo (24)
Cambridge Corn Exchange (27)
Bristol Academy (28)
Southampton Guildhall (29)
We have fond memories of seeing the band at Liverpool University a few years back, when a confusion between the roadies and the bar staff saw nobody realise they were meant to evict us during what was a wonderful soundcheck - Bobby working his way through a number of soul standards for something like forty-five minutes. It was actually more memorable than the gig itself, if truth be told.
5 comments:
Why is the return of Primal Scream as Jet, knocking out the leftovers from a twelve year old previous album being heralded as the second coming? The way Xfm have gone overboard (wheeling in old managers for soundbites claiming they're the most important band since the Sex Pistols) smells of Sony advertising pressure, but what about 6Music? Have they got too much time to fill? "Education is our aim, rock 'n' roll is our game". Hmmm. - Elvis
Arghh, no no - i hate, loathe and detest primal scream. Make them go away again. In fact, if they bumped into the rolling stones and combusted in some sort of terrible explosion because the universe couldn't hold two such terrible similar bands in close proximity (I was going for some mattter / anti-matter thing there, but that clearly wasn't going to work)that would be even better
Elvis...
I suspect the reason is that this time the primals seem to be in a state where they both need the publicity and are in a state where they might just turn up for these things.
Doctor...
Sometimes, yes, (and sadly, it's the case at the moment) they are like the things that were dislodged from Keef's skull when it bounced at the bottom of the tree. But at others - I'm thinking I'm Losing More Than I'd Ever Had, for example - they do enter that part of the imagination where the only people who can touch them are the most beautiful and gifted of the realm.
Primal Scream are one of this country's most thrilling live acts, and their albums, while not necessarily always without precedent, show a hunger for reinvention. Both of these attributes are sadly lacking in the much more lauded Coldplay, etc. That's why some people (ie: me) like them.
I don't know what planet you're on where Coldplay are more lauded than Primal Scream. To be sure, Coldplay sell more records, but open any music magazine in the last fifteen years and you'll see them falling over themselves to declare Bobby Gillespie's farts (or, as it's sometimes called, Evil Heat) as the most fantastic thing ever. It's exactly this sort of thing that put me off them totally for years.
And if you love their appetite for reinvention, shouldn't you be really hacked off that they've stopped doing it and gone backwards into a really awful cock-rock band, which is something they've done before anyway? Shouldn't Andrew Weatherall think so too?
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