Primal Scream
Irving Plaza
New York City, NY
4/21/2003

Review by Mike Patterson

It may be time to hang it up Bobby.

I hate to be disrespectful, I mean, you are indie rock royalty, you have had some amazing bright spots in your 18 some odd years in pop. I still bow in deference to "Imperial", I have the lyrics to "Higher Than the Sun" on the wall next to me at work. (The boss loves that let me tell ya) and I'll be damned if "Kowalski" still doesn't make me wanna jump up and down and shout, but it seems that these things are best left to memories rather than slugging through high points in the latter half of your brilliant career in the half assed manner that you delivered to Irving Plaza last night.

Ironically, the very thing that annoys us now is what used to be your strength. You've always only had 4 or 5 songs that you did over and over again in different ways, it just seems you have run out of ways. It's become comical after a while when one realizes that "I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have" became the blueprint for almost every other tune to come (most notably both "Damaged" and "Loaded" and God knows how many different ways you found to rework those two with different titles). Funny though, this was OK ten years ago, it's just really not OK anymore.

While newer tunes like "Miss Lucifer", and "Rise" seem to hit their mark, they seem to come across only as retreads of former glories. I can't help tonight but remember what it was like to watch you at Reading supporting Screamadelica, and how I'd really rather just be back there. That's the problem; you've become so good at aping yourself that it makes us just want the real thing, the days gone by.

The perfunctory version of "Rocks" tonight, doesn't kill the song, it reminds us of the greatness. The faux jailbreak urgency with which "Swastika Eyes" is delivered makes me long for the true jailbreak urgency with which it was originally delivered.

In the final analysis, Bobby, I'm already getting old, we both are, and that's ok, just don't charge me 25 bucks to rub it in.