The Screamadelica anniversary tour is well under way and Primal Scream seem to be well into the swing of things after the less than complimentary reviews of their London gig, which had me wondering exactly what to expect.
After getting hopelessly lost for half an hour, thanks to my sat nav completely failing to get me to the right side of the Tyne river, never mind the actual venue, I finally found the Academy by accident as I was heading towards the gadget's third attempt at locating the place. Fortunately I hadn't missed anything, and the support act were just beginning as I got in. They were a pretty generic sounding Scots indie type band, I can't say I was too impressed, plus I'd found a cosy little cubby hole with a comfy seat to sit on while I was waiting for the main event.
I found it surprisingly easy to get to the front barrier, with most of the crowd standing a little further back for some reason, which was nice because I do love my front barrier position, being a shortarse who gets stuck behind tall people all too frequently! It was also great when the band came on, lots of space to get my groove on and have a good old dance.
Primal Scream came onstage to rapturous adulation from the crowd, and launched into Movin On Up, getting the room moving and setting the scene. They didn't play the album tracks in order, as many bands do, preferring to have a lull in the middle of the set, with tracks Damaged, I'm Comin Down and Shine Like Stars, before ramping up the pace once again to peak with Loaded and Come Together, which pleased the audience and got them jumping around and dancing with joy.
Obviously, once you've done a whole album, there is the encore to consider, and they came back on to perform more recent single Country Girl, and classics Rocks and Jailbird, leaving us all gasping for breath as we danced our socks off.
Particular highlights of the night were very personal indeed, thanks to Bobby Gillespie choosing a young lad to receive the maracas he had been playing. The lad grabbed one, then dropped the other, resulting in a scrum which I am glad to say I won! My sore knees and broken nail were well worth it as I grabbed the maraca and held on tightly to my special souvenir. I headed to the merchandise stall, as I often do, and ended up with a lithograph of the Screamadelica cover art to add to my music art collection, then made my way outside. A guy in the crowd begged me to sell him the maraca, saying he would give me 'any price' for it, but how can you put a price on something like that? I'm much too keen on my memorabilia to lose one of the best pieces I've ever had! I did head towards my car feeling slightly uneasy that I might get mugged but there was nobody around so I jumped in and locked all the doors before heading home.
All in all, I had an amazing time, Primal Scream were on top form as they move on with their anniversary tour and nobody was left disappointed.
No comments:
Post a Comment