CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE SHOW HERE.

“Can’t go back, can’t go back. To the place I was before,” yells Bobby Gillespie. Yes, and that’s rather a shame Mr Gillespie, because the place you seem to be in now is the barren land of No (decent) New Ideas. So if you don’t mind, could you please click the heels of those weathered black boots and take us all back to Screamadelica’s hazy, colour-drenched fields or Vanishing Point’s slick, dub-bound streets.

Unfortunately Bobby Gillespie and Primal Scream are only slightly obliging tonight. The majority of the set at Sydney’s Forum is taken up with the, frankly, disappointing material taken from more recent releases such as Riot City Blues and Beautiful Future.

Not that the majority of the audience care. There’s a sizeable number of people here of a certain age who, regardless of what the set-list looks like, are hell-bent on revisiting the rave tent of their youth, getting their tops off and dousing fellow patrons with buckets of sweat from their ageing torsos.

This hasn’t escaped Primal Scream’s notice. As if to compensate for any shortcomings in their material the band allow a range of super-sized beats to pound relentlessly through most of the set. Can’t Go Back limps along making an occasional grab at the coat tails of a half-decent song, while Beautiful Future emulates Bryan Ferry having a sizeable off day. It’s sub-standard stuff, but not to worry: we can still dance like it’s 1993 courtesy of a headache of a drum-beat.

To be fair, the giant rhythms do keep the crowd moving, but over-use feels like the band are scared any variation will send everyone running for the door. Fine, there may be no expectation that Primal Scream will go anywhere near the blues balladry of Cry Myself Blind, but when Higher than the Sun’s woozy acid trip is trampled all over by Darrin Mooney’s errant drumsticks, it really is a whistle and white glove too far.

Despite their encroaching years, Primal Scream have always looked like a band whose rock n’ roll credentials have been well preserved. However, somewhere along the line they seem to have developed moves bands half their age can only have nightmares about. It could be some sort of knowing nod to Spinal Tap, but I’m not convinced that Andrew Innes really is parodying the parody when he actually machine-guns the audience with the neck of his axe. Even the irrepressible Mani looks embarrassed.

Fortunately Father Time overlooked Bobby Gillespie when he bestowed other middle-agers with the desire to pin-wheel their guitars. Primal Scream may not be the band they were, but Gillespie’s unsettling stage presence is still strangely captivating. There’s definitely no one else that can chew up the brilliantly nasty Swastika Eyes with genuine malice then stand perfectly still with an eerily hollow look of “where the fuck am I, and who the fuck are you.”

Swastika Eyes perfectly pre-empts the arrival of Primal Scream at the destination they were always (hopefully) heading for. Gillespie grips the mic through a curtain of black hair for the glorious Movin’ On Up; still sounding like the ultimate anthem for Generation X with its unstoppable rolling piano and mountainous harmonies. Screamadelica’s best then makes way for Rock’s dirty glam stomping boots, sending everyone into a filthy, blues driven frenzy.

As Dorothy said, there’s no place like home.