“Revolving Stages” of Primal Scream: Autoethnography, “Collective Effervescence,” Live Performance, and the Making of an Alternative Legacy Act

This article explores the evolution of the Scottish rock band Primal Scream into an alternative legacy act. It discusses the “revolving stages” of Primal Scream’s career, focused on their musical and performative development, which aligns with their ever-increasing profile and audience. The article takes an autoethnographic approach, based on memories of four concerts the authors attended between 1986 and 2010, where Durkheim’s notion of “collective effervescence” is applied to gain insights into the experience of seeing Primal Scream live during this period. Tutenges’s subtypes of violent effervescence and compassionate effervescence are also applied to underline the nuanced and radical evolution of the band, as understood from the perspective of the audience experience. The article concludes that the period between the groundbreaking albums Screamadelica and XTRMNTR (1991–2000) generated the foundation of the alternative legacy act that emerged in 2010 at Olympia London.