Gig Review

Photo Of Supergrass © Copyright TriggerSupergrass
Bristol, Academy
20 th April 2008
               
     
Tonight was the fourth gig I have been to this week and the third at the Academy in Bristol a venue I love but also hate. We got to the venue about ten minutes before Supergrass were due on, there was no queue to get into the venue apart from 3 people stood at the box office arguing with the woman in the box because they had a white receipt ticket and not a proper ticket, I don’t get what they were trying to achieve as it doesn’t matter what ticket the box office gave them they were still going to get into the show and every one was going to be happy. After the people finally stopped arguing we got our tickets and headed in, as soon as we walked into the venue we could feel the heat, it was just like we had stepped off the plane onto a tropical island at its hottest peak, we looked into the main room and it was rammed, people were against the main doors to get in, we some how managed to squeeze our way through the door and past the people and found ourselves a position for the next two hours.

Photo Of Supergrass © Copyright TriggerI have been into Supergrass ever since they released their debut album 'I Should Coco' back in 1995, the song 'Alright' got me into Supergrass and is still my favourite song by them with many others close behind. Supergrass were down for playing from 9pm-11pm a solid two hour set that I was quite excited about, at 9pm the lights went down and Supergrass took to the stage, on stage it was like a Coombes family reunion with Gaz Coombes taking front position dressed quite smartly in black, with a white hat hiding his hair and a guitar in hand, latest band member Charlie Coombes was on the far left side dressed in a black leather jacket and checkered shirt also playing guitar. Rob Coombes, the bands touring keyboard player was situated on the right hand side of stage and to be honest looked quite out of place. Drummer Danny Goffey hasn’t aged since the band formed and still looks not a moment over 16, he took no time getting to his drum kit and spinning his sticks, it was a welcome return for bassist Mick Quinn who is back on the road with Supergrass after a bad sleepwalking accident left him with a battered back just seven months ago, Mick was situated to the far right on the stage with his bass and like Danny, hasn’t aged and still looks as young as he was when the band first started off.

Photo Of Supergrass © Copyright TriggerSupergrass wasted no time in playing new material, kicking off with a double header from their new album with 'Diamond Hoo Ha Man' and 'Bad Blood' being the first tracks of the night, The opening guitar riff of 'Diamond Hoo Ha Man' got part of the crowd going, you could clearly tell that the front of the crowd was full of the true fans who have followed Supergrass from the start and have not let a bad album release not make them check out the next, the other half of the crowd were clearly people who have the bands Greatest Hits album and haven’t heard much more. 'Bad Blood' went down equally as well as 'Diamond Hoo Ha Man' did but you could clearly tell that the fans wanted to hear the classic hits, but saying that a year from now the fans will be crying out to hear these two songs again as they are huge songs that just haven’t been played enough yet.

To be fair to Supergrass they had a lot off balls to play a hell of a lot of their new material right from the start, they seemed to have the right formula to play 2 new songs then play one of their classic hit singles and then play a couple more new songs and then another hit single, it seemed to work well as the crowd was slowly getting into the new material and when a classic song was played such as 'Sun Hits The Sky' the crowd were clearly in their element bopping along and singing the song word for word.

Photo Of Supergrass © Copyright TriggerI have always moaned about the bad lighting at the Academy, it’s normally red or blue and makes the lighting in your old school hall look like something special when it really isn’t. Well tonight Supergrass did something about the lighting and brought along their own massive screen and own lighting effects, throughout the whole show the screen of lights was changing from flashing up words like Supergrass to having a multicoloured lighting display to showing little cartoon strips to showing the band live on screen as they play, this was very welcomed and really brightened up the set.

By the end of the night most of the hits were played which included the muppet friendly 'Pumping On Your Stereo', the hard hitting 'Richard III', the chilled out sounding 'Late In The Day', and one of my favourite tracks 'Mary' which has the best chorus Supergrass have ever written, with its eerie sound. The crowd were clearly in their elements as the hits were pouring out, there were drunk people everywhere dancing along at their own pace singing along word for word but very out of tune and out of place, you could clearly tell everyone was having fun. Supergrass finished the night with their first ever single release 'Caught By The Fuzz'.

Photo Of Supergrass © Copyright TriggerWhen the show finished I looked at my phone and realised that it was only 10.25pm and Supergrass only played for 1hour and 25minutes, now this seems like an average time for a gig but when you are a band who have been going for nearly 15 years and have hundreds of songs anything under an hour and 45minutes is a bit of a let down and the main disappointment of the night was that they never played their biggest hit single 'Alright' which would of took the roof off the venue with the crowds participation if it did get played.

Supergrass are one of the very few indie gems from the 1990's Brit rock era who can still knock out good songs and play killer shows and tonight was just as good as any Supergrass show with only a few disappointing moments which can easily be fixed. If everyone didn’t go away from tonight’s show with a smile on their face then I will seriously be shocked.

4/5

Review By Trigger

 Supergrass


Gaz Coombes (Guitar and vocals)
Mick Quinn (Bass and vocals)
Danny Goffey (Drums)
Rob Coombes (Keyboards)

 Band Related Links
Supergrass Myspace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?