(Video) Primal Scream – ‘2013’

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Primal Scream are set to return with new album More Light, their 10th album and first in almost five years, which will be released on May 6.

Bobby Gillespie & co. spent most of the past decade serving up pretty mediocre records, although spattered with some quality individual songs, they just seemed to lose their way. All that aside, ‘2013’, the first cut from Primal Scream’s forthcoming record is excellent. Driving along a warped saxophone, beats and stunning guitar work from Kevin Shields, it serves as a sort of ‘state of the nation’ address. Gillespie hisses and barks, denouncing everyone from “Thatcher’s children” to the “chairman of BP” while berating the fact that “every generation buys the lie just like the one before!”. There is obviously more, just give it the 9 minutes attention it deserves.

Hopefully ‘2013’ isn’t a false dawn, but judging by this 9 minutes of untamed political anger, Primal Scream may have rediscovered their way and not before time.

Oxegen 2011 – Sunday – Ocean Colour Scene, Manic Street Preachers, Alex Metric and Primal Scream

Sunday was by far the weakest lineup of the weekend but still had a lot to offer. Over at the Heineken Green Spheres tent a sizable crowd was gathering for 90’s indie rock stalwarts Ocean Colour Scene. They have always had a big following in this country and the crowd enjoyed it, clapping and singing along perfusely as they ran through fan favourites like ‘Riverboat Song’ and ‘Profit and Peace’. It just all seemed a little tired and jaded, perhaps old father time is catching up with them.

There was a distinctly ’90s fervor to Sunday’s proceedings with the Manic Street Preachers next over on The Main Stage. This slot summed up everything I hate about the Main Stage at Oxegen. The Manics arrived on stage opening with ‘You Love Us’, ‘Your Love Alone Is Not Enough’, ‘(Its Not War) Just the End of Love’ and ‘Everything Must Go’ before launching into a set full of classics. It was met with indifference from the majority of the crowd who seemed disinterested. For their part The Manics sounded exceptional and would have been much better suited to a later slot somewhere else.

It was a completely different story for Alex Metric who had drawn the largest crowd of the weekend into The Electric Ballroom and this time they were fully in tune with the storm being brewed from behind his turntables. Metric had the audacity to drop his Sabotage Remix, sending the place into a air-punching-frenzy, the highlight of the day.

How many bands can get away with playing a full album, a 20 year album in fact, at a festival? Probably just Primal Scream especially when it’s Screamadelica. The crowds may have been elsewhere but the atmosphere inside the Heinken tent was wonderful, warm and loved up. We were immediately treated to fully fleshed out versions of ‘Higher Than The Sun’ and ‘Moving On Up’ with mesmerizing gospel backing. It was clear Bobby Gillespie was as unworried about the numbers as the crowd was, spending the set strutting and swaggering, a superb frontman.

While it kind of waned a little during the middle finishing off with ‘Come Together’ and ‘Loaded’ almost lifted the roof off the Heineken tent with just enough time for ‘Country Girl’, ‘Jailbird’ and ‘Rocks’. Freed from the constraints of Screamadelica they seemed more comfortable in their rock persona sending people home happy in the cool night air. A joyous climax to a surprisingly amazing weekend.