Supergrass at Sydney Enmore Theatre 20th July 2002

Britpop lives! Or does it? Supergrass have been languishing in SAH's ever-growing CATSA* file since 2001's fleeting appearance at the Reading festival. Yeah, they played about a million songs, but only one new track among them, thus giving very little away as to what the dickens they'd been up to for the previous 18 months.

Flash forward to now, however, and you've got a totally different story. Supergrass are here in Australia to headline the Splendour In The Grass festival up in Byron Bay (very good, by all accounts, if a little chilly) and they've kindly taken the time to pop down to Sydney while they're knocking around the same hemisphere. And would you credit it - they've brought an absolute sackload of new songs with them...

The Enmore is full to bursting with indie waifs, curious Brits and a smattering of celeb hangers-on (well, Rhys Ifans is here anyway) and thankfully the 'Grass are on top form. Instead of shying away from testing out virgin material, as many bands might after a lengthyish break, they kick straight in with a languid piano-led newie, then swiftly remind everyone where they left off with a glammed-up "Pumping On The Stereo" (yeah, it still sounds like "humping"...). Two more already-classic fresh tracks follow - "Grace" and "Rush Hour Soul", to be precise - and thus the tone is set for the evening.

From where we're sitting/standing/dancing stupidly, every new song aired sounds like a single, a knack some feared Supergrass may have lost after 1999's bitty third album Supergrass. That said, the album's standout track, the oddly sinister "Mary" gets an airing, followed by tonight's first true ace-in-the-hole: "Prophet 15" is magnificent, a fiercely addictive Bowie-esque strum which somehow manages to namecheck everyone from Oscar Wilde and Steve McQueen to Marvin Gaye and John Belushi. Gaz even slips in a saddo fanboy reference to one "Joe The Lion", which more perceptive readers will notice is a fairly obscure Bowie song.

[Danny explains to SAH at the aftershow that the song is about "an imaginary dinner party in the clouds..."]

By this point, Supergrass have got us by the short'n'curlies - and we're not even halfway through the set. The rocket-fuelled Stoogepunk of forthcoming single "Never Done Nothing Like That Before" segues into a cracking take on "Lose It", and the old/new see-saw continues apace. Regrettably, we didn't manage to catch the titles of the remaining new tracks (the album's called Life On Other Planets by the way), but the 'Grass sandwiched them effortlessly between meaty Class Of '95 classics like "Mansize Rooster", "Strange Ones" and "Lenny" so...whaddya want, blood?

Yeah, so they encored with "Caught By The Fuzz" - so what? It rocked! Amazingly, they didn't play the still incredibly irritating "Alright", and even more amazingly, nobody here seemed to mind. There's no point looking backwards when there's so much to look forward to...

Supergrass website

*CATSA= "Crikey, Are They Still Around?"

(originally published 1st August 2002)