Primal Scream rock Edinburgh's Usher Hall with something old and something new to delight Capital fans
Primal Scream rocked the Usher Hall in Edinburgh on Thursday night with a set mixed with new songs and greatest hits.
The band’s Capital fans lapped up the rock legends’s set, with frontman Bobby Gillespie cementing his place as arguably Scotland’s greatest rock star, with the 62-year-old nipping about the stage and orchestrating the adoring crowd like he was still in his 20s.
Songs from the Primals’ latest album ‘Come Ahead’, their 12th offering released late last year, littered the set early on, including funky disco offering ‘Love Insurrection’ with Gillespie bringing his dancing shoes along the M8 from his hometown of Glasgow.
Classic 1994 hit ‘Jailbird’ saw fans get their phones out to capture Gillespie venturing out across the stage for the first time, before heading back to the mic stand for new tune ‘Ready To Go Home’.
The band’s soulful backing singers impressed throughout the set, but Gillespie is still the star of the show, taking centre stage with his white suit jacket and moves like Jagger, cementing his place as Scotland's greatest ever rock frontman.
Anti-war and anti-fascism new track ‘Deep Dark Waters’ darkened the mood slightly with it’s deep and dirty sound, while videos of far-right leaders and Donald Trump’s cringe-filled meeting in the Oval Office with Volodymyr Zelenskyy playing on the big screen.
Gillespie then dedicated ‘Medication’ from 1997 album ‘Vanishing Point’ to Edinburgh’s Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, a big fan of the band who might well have been in attendance to see the Primals.
While the new songs didn't quite cut through with most of the audience, one of the band’s signature tunes ‘Loaded’, from legendary 1991 album ‘Screamadelica’, quickly got the crowd going again, with the famous album cover projected onto the screen. With this indie dance anthem hitting the set just past the halfway stage, it really was perfect timing, with Gillespie soaking up the adulation of the Edinburgh crowd, provoking furious body-popping in the aisles and rapturous applause.
Barnstorming and menacing ‘Swastika Eyes’ darkened the mood again, before uplifting anthem ‘Moving On Up from Screamadelica created another shift change in the mood.
‘Riot City Blues’ track ‘Country Girl’ from 2006 nearly blew the roof off the 111-year-old venue, with the crowd left begging for more as the band exited the stage before the encore.
They returned with new chilled out track ‘Melancholy Man’, from their latest album ‘Come Ahead’, the closest the rockers will ever come to a ballad.
Click here to sign up 👇
The band ended the night with greatest hits sing-along anthems ‘Come Together’, complete with a bit of Elvis’s ‘Suspicious Minds’ at the end, and Primal Scream anthem ‘Rocks’ had every single person in the 2,200 capacity venue dancing and jumping up and down to finish a triumphant Edinburgh set.
Despite going strong since 1982, these indie rock legends show no signs of slowing down, and despite being in his 60s now, frontman Gillespie proved at the Usher Hall, if he needed to, that he is still the real deal and a force to be reckoned with on stage.