ON FRIDAY night Primal Scream became the latest group to benefit from an arrangement called the Carling Homecoming.

The idea is that a beer company waves a financially powered magic wand and transports a major-league British group, together with TV crew, back to a small venue in the vicinity of their origins. After the return of Jamiroquai to Ealing, the Charlatans to Manchester and Manic Street Preachers to Cardiff in this way, it was the turn of Primal Scream to be whisked back to Glasgow, where the band was convened by the whey-faced singer Bobby Gillespie and where they played their first gig on October 11, 1984.

The scene of the homecoming was a 600-capacity venue in Sauchiehall Street that had been converted for the occasion into a shrine to Carling Lager as much as to Primal Scream. To say that the dice were loaded in the group’s favour would be to put it mildly. The sponsors, having ensured that tickets for the event found their way only to the hardest of hardcore fans, proceeded to supply them with free beer for the evening.

By the time Gillespie led his troops through encores including Movin’ On Up, Medication and Kick Out the Jams, an air of rowdy bonhomie had reached every corner of the room, and a substantial quantity of the beer had reached the floor.

In keeping with their bolshy reputation, the band didn’t go out of their way to capitalise on the situation. Gillespie, whose makeweight vocals were as unkempt as his long, lank hair, complained at one point that the audience wasn’t making enough noise and dedicated Sick City to Glasgow. The other musicians, including guitarists Andrew Innes and Robert Young — the only other members of the current line-up to have played in the group when it was located in Glasgow — dispatched a mixture of heavy stoner rock and pulsating dance beats with a typically dour lack of emotion. Bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield was more ebullient, however, chatting to the audience between songs and unexpectedly plonking a kiss on Gillespie’s lips.

Armed with a “greatest hits” set-list that ranged from bone-rattling dance-rock mantras such as Kowalski and Kill All Hippies to Stones-lite rock’n’roll anthems including Rocks and Jailbird, the band did their bit to ensure it was a crowd-pleasing event. But rather than being a triumphant return to home turf, the gig served to underline how far Primal Scream have moved away from their origins, both musically and geographically.

The band, who enjoyed no success whatsoever until they relocated to Brighton in 1988 and ditched their jangly, indie-pop sound along with various founder members, were hardly going to get sentimental about returning to their roots. But if there was something rather contrived about the whole affair, they did at least take the money and run with plenty of style.

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