Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 22/04/08

It's truly mind-boggling now to think of how famous Supergrass were at their Britpop peak. Thanks to a clutch of effervescent pop songs that captured the brief optimism that ushered in Blair's Britain, Calvin Klein courted Gaz Coombes to become the world's hairiest male model and there was even talk of a Monkees-style TV show. Thank God the band turned it down: if tonight's helping of charisma is anything to go by it would have been about as entertaining as a migraine.

Of course, not every band can be The Flaming Lips, but there's still something dispiriting about the lack of imagination with which Supergrass approach gigging (and tonight is most definitely a gig, not a show). They take their places in regulation rock black (default mode for the image-nervous) and barely move an inch all night. Gaz Coombes may look incredibly well and healthy, but doesn't seem to realise that there's an actual living audience tonight.

None of this mattered so much when it seemed like Supergrass were channelling their energy and personality into songs as vivid as "Sun Hits The Sky". But when they're churning out dull, formulaic pub rock like the opening "Bad Blood", it becomes a crushing problem. In a set heavy on new numbers, only an amped-up, ebullient "Rebel In You" even half-heartedly competes with the best of their old work. More common is a song like "Ghost Of A Friend", which is so derivative and indebted to the ghosts of Bowie and Bolan that it sounds like a bunch of stoned friends rifling through their record collections, saying "remember how good THIS bit is?"

Of course, they do still have the old material, which saves tonight from being a complete waste of time. Best among them is a rampant, splenetic "Richard III", which is so much more direct and confident than anything else tonight, and a quite sublime "Late In The Day", which reminds us that Coombes was once a powerful, emotive singer and a deft songwriter. Even the streamlined, fizzy space rock of "Seen The Light" seems like a pearl among some of the other swines played tonight.

It's hard to dislike anyone who has written so many terrific pop singles, but it's also hard to work out what is gained by seeing them played live by this band except, perhaps, backache. Coombes recently bragged to a national newspaper that Supergrass "aren't showy in that way." He should try learning to be.

by Jaime Gill