Primal ScreamThe last time Bobby Gillespie's troupe graced Perth (for Big Day Out 2011), I joined many teary folk leaving their set halfway through to farewell LCD Soundsystem. Aah, festival clashes from hell. Thus, tonight was the belated equivalent of finishing that exquisite bottle of wine you had to leave at the restaurant 'cause you had to go to a funeral.
Perth's own Sugar Army, riding a bit of a wave after the well-received release of sophomore album Summertime Heavy, were perhaps affected by being uncomfortably cramped at the front of a large stage; they couldn't quite muster much momentum. Far too polished to excite with their thunderous rock and with no visible camaraderie between the band members, tonight the army were far from sweet.
When Primal Scream lost long-time bassist Mani to his original band (the hell's-frozen-over-so-we've-reformed Stone Roses), it was My Bloody Valentine's own Debbie Googe who stepped up. Gillespie curates his band very shrewdly and on tonight's evidence, her appointment seems as genius as Mani's own acquisition. She kept up effortlessly with perhaps the only band in the world who can surge through gospel, dub, garage rock and bangin' techno in one set. New song 2012 was a risky opener that paid off setting up the ruthlessly hard Swastika Eyes brilliantly. The only hiccup of the night came early, in the form of a clumsy Slip Inside This House in which the Eastern-flavoured guitars clashed with Gillespie's vocals, faltering to stay in tune. But this was quickly vanquished by the Stooges-esque metal of Accelerator (from Xtrmntr).
Second new song Relativity created some bounce, before confusing many with a complete about-face in time signature at the halfway point, seemingly transforming into a totally different new song altogether. Ending the primary set with a truly euphoric Come Together and poptastic Country Girl, it was hard to imagine how the obvious big hitters left for the encore could possibly top the energy already exerted. Pre-Screamadelica single I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have segued brilliantly into its latter day incarnation, Loaded. Jailbird and the Rolling Stones-y Rocks saw the evening out, ending with a massive 10-minute wall of feedback and distortion that connected the dots back to Gillespie's first band, The Jesus & Mary Chain.
24 years into their career, a Primal Scream gig is more like therapy than ever before.
