Thursday 2 December 2010

Screamadelica LIVE


Gonna love the life I live and life the life I love...

Half a lifetime ago (well 17 years to be exact) I made a life changing journey with some lads called Nathan, Fred and Ash from the northwest to brixton academy in london. It was grand national day and I drove down in a grey skoda. That night we watched Primal Scream and Funkadelic live with DJ Andy Wetherall. An adam and eve was digested and the rest is history.

Last weekend I made the trip down to london again with Fred, Ash and Al to hook up with Nathan to watch Primal Scream do Screamadelica in full at the Olympia. It was a triumph. Cavernous warehouse style venue with 10,000 people. They did a rock n roll set then came back on to perform the whole of screamadelica. It was fuckin amazing. Powerful, soulful, drenched in funk and euphoric at times. The album translated to stage perfectly and with the live drums and sub bass from mani was actually better than the album. On Higher than the sun they broke into a 10 minute jam of Funkedelic 'I got a thing'. Come Together was beautiful with full horn section and choir. In memory of that night I had to share the following with you. I might not be living the 'gonna get high til the day I day anymore' but I sure as hell love the life especially when it involves magical moments like last saturday night.

Pre-gig screamadelica special with andy weatherall (check out 'Step on gilded splinters'...)
Trax:
Jhalib — Mysteries of the East
Los NiƱos Del Parque — Liaisons Dangereuses
A Certain Ratio — And Then Again
Jah Wobble — Not Another
Can — Mother Earth
Johnny Jenkins — Walk on Gilded Splinters
Chairmen of the Board — Morning Glory
Annie Anxiety — As I Lie in Your Arms
Prince Far I & The Arabs — Homeward Bound
Bill Laswell — Lost Roads
Public Image Ltd. — Radio 4
Nico — Evening of Light
Brian Eno — From The Same Hill
Gene Clark — Strength of Strings
Donnie Fritts — We Had it All
Dennis Wilson — Thoughts of You
Curtis Mayfield — Think
Pharoah Sanders — Astral Travelling
The Delfonics — Didn't I Blow Your Mind
Isaac Hayes — Walk On By




Peace and goodwill to you all, wherever you are

Matt

5 comments:

  1. Loaded...2 cymbal hits...magical...horn..bass...

    then

    Come Together...whens it gonna kick in??? fuckin come on...

    Just listenin back a week later, that was a magical night for sure. Screamadelica is up there with the greatest albums of all time. The chilled section with damaged, shine like stars..in the middle, beautiful. Primal Scream, know what I mean.

    Peace

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cheers for sharing that with us. Brilliant to read about your trip down to the Olympia. I remember, not long after I met Fred in our first year at Uni, him telling me about 'that' concert and how good it was. In fact, he was still talking about it for months to come!

    Really intriguing listening to Weatherall and the music behind the album. A musical education. Also, there are some tracks in there that I would never normally find myself listening to which always makes for interesting listening.

    I'm sure the horns must've sounded amazing live and i loved the piano in 'damaged'.

    Thanks again for the downloads. I had a quick peruse on You tube and found that someone has already added video for a few of the songs from the gig. The bass is a bit shot on a couple of them but you can have fun trying to sync the picture with the mp3s.

    Failing that you can sit back with your headphones on loud, turn the lights off and tune into the projected visuals provided by a miniature, multi-coloured, fibre optic christmas tree from B&Q (yes we have B&Q in Taiwan!). It might not be the screamadelica light fantastic but it made me happy.

    come together. indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was there too, for the Saturday night affair and I agree - it was fucking incredible. My mate Funker had some old blotters in his wallet that he said would act as 'background'... ahem. The visuals were spot-on, the music as you would expect from one of my all-time favourite albums and, yes, their 'Higher Than the Sun' knocked me for 6... just picked me up when they hit the groove, Mani's bass rippling through my entire body (thanks for ID-ing the mad funky workout they went into) and I thought it would never let go of me. And LOUD. Jesus, even the next day, everything sounded like it was underwater. Come together, Loaded...., awww, like being 18 again but with everything beefed up. Absolutely top class!

    Thanks for posting the gig, I look forward to listening to the Wetherall tunes, as I was a little, shall we say distracted at that point....

    ReplyDelete
  4. ha ha nice one dave. The funkadelic track in higher than the sun was 'mommy whats a funkadelic' not i got a thing btw.

    I'm v tempted to go watching it all again in march if I can get a reasonably priced ticket!

    Happy christmas all

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for posting this, sounds as fresh as a daisy! Not had a chance to get stuck into the Weatherall yet but I seem to remember seeing him do a techno set at Bugged Out! at the Nation once.

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.