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Primitive pleasures from the past
Primitives

The Primitives
100 Club, London

ONTO the 100 Club’s tiny but iconic stage step 1980s indie darlings The Primitives. Some jangly guitar and rockabilly riffs kick in and the fizzing ball of energy that is lead singer Tracy Tracy (pictured) launches into I’ll Stick With You, immediately grabbing the audience’s attention and holding it for the best part of an hour.

It’s the London leg of the band’s 30th anniversary Lovely tour, celebrating the Coventry power-pop quartet’s debut album a whole three decades on. It looks like many fans from those days have turned up for what’s a very packed hour of buzz-saw indie numbers as the band whip through 20-plus tracks, melding Paul Court’s 1960s guitar grooves with Tracy’s somewhat bubblegum pop vocals.

But there are darker lyrics, such as the self-explanatory Stop Killin’ Me which starts the first singalong of many. Really Stupid follows in similar vein as does Nothing Left with tracks merging into one another, although the band’s biggest hit Crash gets a mass cheer combined with the less enjoyable raising of camera phones.

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