Tonight doesn't start particularly well. No-one knows how to get in. The paying punters may care not one jot that the guest list queue laps the Alexandra Palace in drizzle and gale-force gusts. But we do. Let's stay positive though. We reach the sanctuary of the main hall eventually. And it is New Year's Eve after all. It's one big party, it's the dawn of the Real New Millennium and we're here to see it in in style...
Of course, style isn't always good. Sometimes it's a great vacuous, drafty (though ornate) hall with abysmal acoustics, poor lighting, screens that go off whenever main acts take the stage, over-priced p**sy lager (okay, that's to be expected) and staff who seem to have arrived individually and at no point learnt what the f**k was going on. Regardless, on with the show.
First up is ex-Stone Roses frontman, King Monkey himself, Ian Brown. He's eager to please and it's a jaunty little shuffle that brings him before us. Shame then that his hits emerge as a mix of montonous drone and pulsating throbs, barely audible and less distinguishable as the sound reverberates around the hall and into the fuzz and humm from the waltzer in the mini fairground at the rear. A standard guitar solo from Aziz reveals a disturbing onanistic Hendrix fantasy and plunges more holes into Brown's already sinking ship. I hadn't planned to sleep through the chimes at midnight, but it might be the safest option. Of course, there will always be Mr Bobby Gillespie and his Primal Scream band.
In the throb and throng of the crowd, Asian Dub Foundation somehow pass us by. We want Primal Scream, we want Primal Scream, we want Primal Scream!
The Scream Team, however, are swamped by the vastness of the venue. That they deliver a set which takes in their entire career -from their rock-blues ode to the heritage of the Stones and the Stooges, to the electronica that had them overtaking such pioneers of indie-dance crossover as the Stone Roses themselves- is by-the-by.
As Mani employs something of a cheeky Mancunian scally act to nudge Bobby from the limelight with bass a la Peter Hook and some pantomime exchanges with the audience, Gillespie simply, and limply, randomly skitters across the stage full of pride. Which, if you could hear what's going on (seeing it would, of course, be a dream..), would be fitting.
But from the a capella entrance to such standards as 'Burning Wheel' and 'Rocks', even though it's Primal Scream up there it's hard to pay attention; you can hardly hear a thing let alone see it. It's cold, it's uncomfortable, people are annoying and hardly festive - apart from perhaps seven girls in embarrassing, no, 'fun' headbands. Horny devils, ho ho! Wander too far back and you find yourself in the two-ride fairground. It's reminiscent of Bender's musical hell in Futurama, except no one held lighters up in the cartoon.
Primal Scream leave the stage and many dash for their coats, embittered by the over-priced damp squib they have just endured, and more bitter perhaps to find out they are about to miss the encore - though you could hardly tell it was going to happen. The only clue being that candyfloss kiosks rarely play 'Higher Than The Sun'.
When you could hear it, the music was beautiful. Maybe if it had just been a gig and not New Year's Eve then expectations wouldn't have been raised and dashed.
Oh, and a happy new year to all of yous...
IMAGES: CHARLIE FREED
