Primal Scream @ O2 ABC, Glasgow, 30 Mar

Bo Ningen have sucked the air right out of the room. The Japanese-by-way-of-London noise rock sprites are fronting a paltry pre-Primal Scream crowd, but by the way they’re razing through track after track of squalling riffs and punk-hallucinogen grooves, they may as well be gracing the stage at Knebworth circa 1976. Been wondering where all the goddamn energy in today’s music has gone? Bo Ningen are bringing it.

The Primals, by contrast, take a little longer to warm up. Latest record Chaosmosis is a sturdy addition to the group’s later-year releases, but the same new-wave torpor that lingered over the Bobby-and-Kate cover ballad Some Velvet Morning weighs heavily over underwhelming set opener 100% Or Nothing and lead single Where The Light Gets In. Hannah Marsden, stand-in vocalist for collaborator Sky Ferriera, looks the part but adds little embellishment to the new material, and the flat audience reaction to the ABC’s notoriously unreliable sound levels has a concerned-looking Gillespie pausing to ask the crowd directly whether they can hear okay.

Fortunately for an adoring Glasgow gallery, Primal Scream have always been at heart (despite, ironically, being oft derided as such), a rock n’ roll band. When they shuffle off the electronic posturing and find their footing in older fare, there’s a palpable energy shift. It’s Alright, It’s Okay, from 2012’s chronically underrated More Light, is the first sign of the stirring beast, and say what you will about 1994’s maligned Give Out But Don’t Give Up; Gillespie leads a stirring sing-along to the bluesy (I’m Gonna) Cry Myself Blind. By the brilliantly raucous Country Girl, our frontman has managed to convert the odious strains of the chanted ‘here we fucking go’ into a whole-venue rendition of ‘Bobby, Bobby, Bobby-fucking-G!’

Like a slow train coming, our vintage Scream take a little while to get going, but with a turn-around like this – and the encore trifecta of I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have, Loaded and, finally, Movin’ On Up – national treasure status remains assured.