Arriving at the Enmore for Primal Scream felt like stepping into a real life version of an app that’s targeting Sydney’s post-divorce dating scene. The crowd were a little older, ready to relive their youth, definitely up for a good time, and actively hitting on each other in the foyer.
It’s a bank of fridges behind the long bar, and the hard pressed staff were rapidly dealing with a pressing throng of drinkers, and as usual it’s cans only – beers – a JD and coke – that kind of thing. The sense of excitement was no doubt heightened by the fact that there were more than a few punters present who might not normally find themselves at the Enmore on a Saturday night. A request for a glass of champagne was met with nothing more than an eye- roll from the lady behind the bar, but an excuse for a bit more flirting between the thirsty.
It’s hard to overstate the effect that Primal Scream had on the nineties and beyond. The music is part of the collective consciousness, and Bobby Gillespie’s hardly-changed-an-inch waif- like silhouette is synonymous with the times.
Primal Scream were last in Australia in 2018, and this tour is covering five cities. They had already done Melbourne before Sydney, and had Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth to go. Their captivating frontman has been plenty busy since the last Aussie visit, and the night took in numbers from Come Ahead, their first studio album in eight years, which was released in November 2024, as well plenty of the hits that Sydney had come to hear.
Come Ahead is their 12th studio album, and the first since 2016’s Chaosmosis. This marks the longest gap between Primal Scream albums in the band’s 35-year-plus career. There was the pandemic, but also the loss of keyboardist Martin Duffy, who died in 2022. Despite all this, and maybe because of it, Come Ahead has been getting rave reviews, and the title is a phrase, and an invitation, in the band’s Scottish homeland, to bring it on- that the speaker is ready for a fight if you’re going to start one. Come Ahead’s cover artwork features Bobby Gillespie’s late father, Robert Gillespie Senior, a trade union leader and a champion for social justice.
As Gillespie said, “I’m very excited about this album in a way that you would be making your first record. If there was an overall theme to Come Ahead it might be one of conflict, whether inner or outer. There is also a thread of compassion running through the album. The title is a Glaswegian term. If someone threatens to fight you, you say, ‘come ahead!’ It’s redolent of the indomitable spirit of the Glaswegian, and the album itself shares that aggressive attitude and confidence. They have a word for this up there, gallus. Come Ahead’s quite a cheeky title too.”
The band opened with Swastika Eyes, a hit from 1999, and then Love Insurrection from the new album, both an examination of the state of the world and an ask for something better. And then they were into Jailbird and the crowd went wild.
Over the last few years Gillespie has been prolific. He teamed with Paul Weller writing lyrics for ‘Soul Wandering’, the first single from Weller’s latest album 66, and collaborated with Jehnny Beth in Paris, writing and recording an entire album of duets titled Utopian Ashes.
He has also collaborated with acid house duo Paranoid London, singing on their new song ‘People (Ah Yeah)’, and composed his first movie soundtrack for the 2023 cinematic release Five Hectares with French filmmaker Émilie Deleuze.
Bobby also sings on six new songs on the forthcoming Peter Perrett album, The Cleansing.
Then there’s the book. His 2021 memoir Tenement Kid was selected as Rough Trade’s Book of the Year and won the NME Award for Best Music Book. Gillespie has always been deeply political, a fervent crusader against right- wing ideology and the Tory party in the UK. The book details Gillespies story up to the release of Primal Scream’s breakthrough third album Screamadelica in 1991. It’s about his upbringing in Glasgow on the wrong side of multiple tracks, the landscapes, politics and injustices that have formed him and the music, and the making of moves into the industry.
Unusual for a legacy act, Primal Scream have not only kept the charm and the hits that got everyone going in the first place, the well is far from dry, and hopefully there’s plenty more for us to come together for in the future.
Primal Scream
Enmore Theatre, Sydney
11th January 2025
