(Photo by Holly Bradley)
Considering that Britpop-era survivors Supergrass are currently in the midst of UK festival dates marking the 30th anniversary of debut album I Should Coco, it’s one of those facts that drive home that time is passing with rather alarming rapidity. Frontman and guitarist Gaz Coomes, drummer Danny Goffey and bassist Mick Quinn were mere teens when their debut was released in 1995. And in scanning the roughly 5,000 strong crowd, the same can be said for many of us within tonight’s audience. However, the Oxford band’s twenty song set is – rather than a reminder of time’s relentless march – a bracing antithesis, a celebratory shot of nostalgia to be enjoyed in the present.
Playing all thirteen tracks from the album in sequence, Goffey’s machine gun drum roll that kicks off opener ‘I’d Like To Know’ contains a youth-like verve that starts proceedings on energetic terrain. At the song’s close, Coombes, with one hand shredding out guitar licks, uses the other to gee up the audience. The catchy guitar thrash of ‘Caught by the Fuzz’ – the band’s first ever single in 1994 – and the excellent keyboard hook in ‘Mansize Rooster’ provide emphatic evidence of Coco being frontloaded with gems.
And this is all before career-making anthem ‘Alright’, a lovably jaunty tune that stands as one of the definitive moments of the Britpop era. Coombes pauses briefly to say that the decision to go on the road and play the whole album is sequence is “quite exciting, actually” while Goffey – in another marker of time moving on – informs us that his daughter got married yesterday and thus he had gotten “off his tits.” Coombes’ brother Rob, who joined the band in 2002 then executes that iconic piano opening and the crowd promptly go bananas.
(Photo by AJ Stark)
Playing beneath a large backdrop of the artwork from Coco – the cartoon depictions of the trio who, it must be said, had brilliant, youthful visages of an already cartoony nature – all is sounding sprightly and dynamic. It’s also impressive to note that each of the four musicians appear to be, at around the 50 year mark, masters of maintaining a solid hairline. Gaz, now fully bearded and removed of the iconic mutton-chops of yore, provides the only possible element of doubt with his wearing of a fiddler’s cap, though a thoroughly substantial mane protrudes from his headgear.
During the raucous, new wave flavoured ‘Strange Ones’, one notices how Quinn’s bassline pulses thunderously from the stage. There’s also a bout of instrument swapping for ‘We’re Not Supposed To,’ one of the first tracks, we’re told, that they recorded on 4-track when living together at a “very young” age. Quinn shifts to guitar, Goffey to bass and Gaz Coombes substitutes electric for acoustic guitar.
With the album sequence complete, Supergrass play a seven song selection from their subsequent records from 1997-2002. It’s at this point that Rob Coombes emerges as a key player and deserves special mention for his keyboard/organ embellishments to the band’s live sound. He adds a screaming synth break and theremin-like sonics to the devastating two chord racket of ‘Richard III’, a psychedelic swirl of 60s inflected organ to complement his brother’s wah-wah soloing during ‘Sun Hits The Sky’ and, in the evening’s most emotive moment, he adds synthetic strings to ‘Moving.’
For his part, brother Gaz’s vocals sound elastic and sharp during the momentum shifting standout of ‘Late in the Day’ and he nails the fuzzy lead part echoing the song’s vocal melody with an irresistible guitar tone. A two song encore closes with the repetitively hypnotic refrain of ‘Pumping on your Stereo’ which the audience start singing prior even to the band launching into the tune.
Thirty years since that debut, Supergrass are in solid shape. Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes’ ‘(I’ve Had) The Time of my Life’ plays as we leave the amphitheatre. For the significant pockets of fans who have been observed throughout, arm in arm and singing along to nearly every word, it’s an apposite choice of send off.
Scott Hammond