For more than 30 years, since the release of their kaleidoscopic, acid-soaked breakthrough classic ‘Screamadelica’, Primal Scream have wanted you to get loaded and have a good time.
But the innately political side of frontman Bobby Gillespie - the son of a trade union activist - has always added a deeper dimension. And now, in 2025, with the world quite literally on fire and as genocidal wars continue to rage on, this duality rang out across West London’s Hammersmith Apollo more than ever. This was dystopian disco for the end times. Or, as Gillespie told the crowd during a still-transcendent Moving On Up: “We’re in the holy church of rock’n’roll, it might even save your soul.”
Touring in support of last year’s Come Ahead, the band’s first album since 2016, there was a slightly disjointed relationship between the funk and soul nods of those tracks and the classic, big-hitting oldies. Playing eight of 11 songs from a relatively new record is a big ask of a crowd at the best of times, but when you’re lining them up next to a back catalogue as beloved as Primal Scream’s finest moments, there was bound to be a notable see-sawing in audience reaction. Everyone stood up for the hits, and sat back down for the new ones.
However, the overriding feeling was of a band who’ve lost none of their passion and spark, whether it’s directed at the failing systems of a “fortress continent built on Colonial theft” on Deep Dark Waters, or it just wants to soundtrack the revolution with a party on Rocks. A video montage of Elon Musk saluting, spliced with horrifying scenes from Gaza hammered the point home on the former; Loaded, meanwhile, saw the Technicolour-hued screens projecting images of a young Gillespie in all his long-haired, twenty-something glory. The pairing could feel confused but, for Primal Scream, they’re two sides of the same coin - of art and communion as a kind of vital resistance.
Gillespie himself, dapper in a white tuxedo jacket and flares and shaking his limbs with a characteristic brand of unsmiling vigour, had a timeless quality to him. Where Shaun Ryder and Bez of former peers Happy Mondays now spend their days goofing about on Gogglebox, Gillespie has remained undeniably cool; an example of how to retain your youthful qualities without descending into parody. With the band augmented by a pair of sequin-clad backing singers and additional players touting flutes, saxophone and more, there was true showmanship - although perhaps a clap-along crowd section for almost every track was a little overkill.
Nonetheless, aside from a brief lull with the mid-paced one-two of Love Ain’t Enough and The Centre Cannot Hold, Primal Scream’s return to the capital made for a fitting reminder that there’s still plenty of life left in Gillespie and co, and that - far from a nostalgia act - they still feel energised and like they’ve got more to give. Old ‘XTRMNTR’ single Swastika Eyes pounded out of the speakers at life-affirming volume, while an encore of Come Together felt particularly pertinent as a moment of rousing unity. “Life’s a bitch and then you die, that’s why we get high, ‘cause you never know when you’re gonna go,” riffed Gillespie during Loaded, calling back to Nas’ 1994 hit. If life in 2025 is about as turbulent as it gets, then at least, for two hours, Primal Scream offered a much-needed alternative.
