The Primitives – Live @ QMU – sonic pr

Review By Darren McIntyre Photos by Scott Anderson

The Primitives are an Indie pop band from Coventry, England who were formed in 1984 and were probably best known for their 1988 hit “Crash”. The band have given us 5 albums throughout their career before they disbanded in 1992 only to reform again in 2009, tonight they are special guests of Hugh Cornwell and bring their infectious brand of Indie Pop to Glasgow.

The band hit the stage dead on at 7 pm and launched into a 14-song setlist that brought us the Indie Pop-infused Thru The Flowers to warm up this swelling Glasgow crowd as the place was filling up nicely. The tracks were fast, furious, in your face and had this crowd hollering and cheering with each track as the band delivered a no-nonsense infusion of hits that had us saying ‘Oh I remember this one.

Tracy chatted and told us it was nice to be back in Glasgow again which brought a cheer from us, the band brought us hits like “Spacehead” which was a foot-stomping trip through the Indie pop era which seemed to delight the crowd, and we rattled through hits “Stop Killing Me”, to the classic rumbling “Way Behind Me” that had the crowd singing along. The venue seemed to warm to the band as they warmed us up for the main event as they punched out “Lose The Reason”, “I’ll Trust The Wind” and the soulful “I Won’t Come which brought the crowd to life, we were getting to the middle of their set as they asked us if we were having a good time and we shouted back hell yeah, this brought a smile to their faces as they thanked us for coming out and supporting them on this tour.

We watched as Tracy pounced around the stage and swigged water before hitting us with another killer track “Out Of Reach”, “Sick Of It” and the crunching guitar-laden track “Buzz Buzz Buzz” came ploughing towards us as they dropped the foot-stomping “Don’t Know Where To Start”.

The band then informed us that we should know this classic that was a hit way back in the day as we waited on the gritty Indie foot stomper that is “Crash” that brought this eager crowd to life as they bellowed out Crash as Tracy and the boys played a blinder and squeezed every inch of joy from us tonight, we were coming to the end of the set which was a fast-paced 60 minutes of sheer power driven Indie groove-laden, foot-stomping arrangements that just took us back to our heyday as Tracy sounded every bit as good tonight as she did way back then.

Taking us homeward bound was the killer track “Really Stupid” which just upped the tempo for the swansong piece that was another timeless classic in the form of “Spin O Rama” which just raised the tempo as the band left the stage to huge applause and cheers.

The Primitives  –

                         Tracy  –  Vocals

                         Paul  –  Guitar / Backing Vocals

                         Guest  –  Bass

                         Tig  –  Drums

Setlist  –

            Thru The Flowers

            Spacehead

            Stop Killing Me

            Way Behind Me

            Lose The Reason

            I’ll Trust The Wind

            I Won’t Come

            Out Of Reach

            Sick Of It

            Buzz Buzz Buzz

            Don’t Know Where To Start

            Crash

            Really Stupid             Spin O Rama