It’s not a vintage night at The Piece Hall. Between a man checking his fantasy football results during Mansize Rooster (commiserations to his West Ham-heavy team) and another clad in Oasis clobber stumbling into everyone, it’s not the party atmosphere many will want to repeat from thirty years ago. Not every crowd has to be in perfect standing for a band to make the most of a show. Supergrass‘ return to the stage is in celebration of I Should Coco, a great album that has stood the test of time. Or, at least, it is pitched as such. These are different times, too, and thirty years on is the perfect chance to feed in some life lessons and contrasts to the original material. But it’s either an acceptance of the legacy act appeal or an inability to find new meanings that hinders Supergrass throughout their brief showcase at The Piece Hall.
When a band advertises a playthrough of their debut album, that is what you would expect. Supergrass subverts that expectation by not playing I Should Coco in order and instead selecting a few songs from it. The bulk of the set is I Should Coco, but those hoping to hear fresh meanings or new inspirations from those classics will be sorely disappointed. Either the band is dissatisfied with the I Should Coco tour, or they have no confidence in the material making a transition to the modern day. Where the band may still sound solid, and Gaz Coombes has miraculously not lost any range or depth to his vocals, they aren’t giving these songs the satisfying anniversary showing they had promised. Caught by the Fuzz is given a break after the second verse, which feels more like the band forgot a verse than anything planned, while Alright has that inevitable inclusion to it, which feeds the nostalgia-chasing crowd exactly what they want.
Supergrass has unfortunately given in to the self-cannibalisation of the nostalgia circuit, all the while many of their peers have shifted away from it. New material is not the only way to bring yourself into the modern day. Songs like Sitting Up Straight and Time to Go have that potential. The contrast of thirty years and lessons learned is right there, and yet not adapted. They are the best of the set, better than Alright and Moving. A band willing to give the audience what they want is a band that has given up. Coombes and the rest of Supergrass still sound fantastic, but the mood is deflated somewhat when they can’t get through I Should Coco because they want to fit Moving and Richard III into the early portion of their set. It’s not a particularly long album, though it is not all too long a set, either.
Sports Team and Ellur steal the show, and they are welcome examples of what the future of music has in store. The former has excellent confidence, the latter is hellbent on that communal experience of gig-going at its most involved. It’s a brilliant time in the early hours of the show. Supergrass was defined by the spirit of their youth, that counter to the mainstream success of other acts at the time. I Should Coco should still be that defiant release, that act of kicking against the popular form. The album still is, the band not so. The I Should Coco tour never feels like a celebration, more like an obligation. Thirty years is a long time, and if there are no new messages or contemplations on the strong material to be found on I Should Coco, then there is little point in performing it.
