Supergrass reside at Bristol Sounds, Bristol Harbourside, 25 June 2025
★★★★☆
“My daughter bought married final evening!” Gaz Coombes proudly informs the group as Supergrass headline the opening night of the newest Bristol Sounds collection on town’s harbourside. “I used to be off me tits. ‘Yet another drink’…”
If the fourpiece’s frontman remains to be feeling the after-effects of his household celebrations the next day, you’d by no means have identified it. The band’s crowdpleasing set barely missed a beat.
It’s an amusing counterpoint, although – the now nigh-on 50-year-old Dad and head of his household right here to ship the 90s’ best anthems of teenage abandon. There’s the passage of time proper there in a nutshell…
These newest Supergrass exhibits are constructed across the 30th anniversary of their landmark debut album I Ought to Coco. It stays a set textual content from the period. A straight-out-of-the-box slice of brilliance, the LP was a vastly assured opening assertion filled with hooks galore in addition to a youthful sense that something was attainable.
So our setlist right here sees the band play Coco in its entirety adopted by seven selection cuts from throughout the remainder of their profession.
Image credit score: Holly Bradley
I Ought to Coco
The multi-part punk-pop of I’d Like To Know and hashish deal gone unsuitable story Caught By The Fuzz make for giddily frantic openers, a tempo maintained with a breezy romp via Mansize Rooster. And pogoing predictably breaks out en masse for Supergrass’ largest hit Alright. An overplayed Britpop mainstay it could be, but it surely nonetheless can’t fail to lift a smile.
The band could also be without end tagged with the breezy optimism of that specific monitor but it surely was solely ever one side of their songwriting. That’s evidenced within the cocksure confidence of Lenny’s delay and launch intro – which all the time lasts a bit longer than you assume – and Time’s languid groove. In the meantime, Couch (Of My Lethargy) additionally proved I Ought to Coco wasn’t merely a string of race-you-to-the-end punkiness.
By album two, after all, the band had been at pains to shake off their cheeky picture. In It For The Cash’s key single Richard III noticed them succeed on that entrance in fashion and received the most important response of the evening right here.
Image credit score: Holly Bradley
See The Sights And Really feel Alright
If the band’s innate sense of melody can generally be missed, then step ahead Late In The Day and Shifting to state their case. Likewise, the Hammond-led Mary was one other leisurely spotlight.
They nonetheless had a bit left within the tank, although. Relatively than leaving us with a lighters-in-the-air anthem the band encored with the ebullient one-two punch of Solar Hits The Sky and Pumping On Your Stereo.
These validatory reunion exhibits have reasserted their nationwide treasure standing. Wouldn’t it’s terrific if they may get it collectively within the studio, too, for a seventh album?
Featured picture credit score: Holly Bradley
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