Gig review: Primal Scream, Glasgow

Primal Scream’s current album, More Light, is one of the bolder sonic adventures of a career which has alternated between eclectic experimentation and classic rocking party tunes.

Bobby Gillespie and Primal Scream seemed keen to get their new work out. Picture: Robert Perry

Primal Scream - SECC, Glasgow

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The crowd and this barn of a venue both favoured the directness of the latter but the band were keen to dwell on the former in a set heavily weighted with their latest wares.

The fans were thrown a bone early on in the shape of oldie Jailbird but much of the show felt like an uphill struggle for hearts and minds.

Tasty treats such as the Bowiesque snake-hipped sax of opening number 2013 or the hippyish flute flourishes on Culturecide could only make a limited impact when the echoey acoustics of the hall often reduced the songs to bass rumble and drum thud.

“It’s good to bring things down,” suggested frontman Bobby Gillespie to general indifference.

Eventually, the group came to life with the driving electro garage of Swastika Eyes and romped home from there with the loveable rammy of Country Girl – sounding more of a din than ever – and the caveman boogie of Rocks.

For their encore, country-tinged ballad I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have melted into its more renowned remix version, Loaded, its simple fanfare of a hookline picked out first on saxophone, then by the chanting audience, before two more euphoric Screamadelica standards, Come Together and Movin’ On Up, made a belated hands-in- the-air connection with the crowd.