Supergrass @ The o2 Academy, Leeds March 1st 2020 GIG REVIEW

Back in the day, people used to ask the question - Who’s better, Oasis or Blur? Every time they asked me, I would always say Supergrass! They were easily the best band from the Britpop era of the 1990’s (in my opinion), and one of my favourite bands from my childhood, and when the news of their reformation came last year, I was absolutely ecstatic! When they disbanded initially in 2010, it felt like there was a giant void where they should have been, and having them back makes things a whole lot better. Things haven’t been the same since Gaz, Danny, Mick and Rob parted ways and it was so refreshing to have them back.

Last night’s show was their second night at the o2 Academy in Leeds (the first night sold out immediately, and this one did too!) this was also my third Supergrass show (the first two I went to were at Manchester Academy back in 2008 and 2010 respectively).

Around 9PM, Supergrass came on and despite the fact they looked about 10 years older since I last saw them (not to mention the audience were about a decade older since I last saw them, the audience demographic was literally all ages) . . . they absolutely killed it! They appropriately opened with the title track off their second album ‘In It For The Money’, - was this possibly the reason behind the reunion tour? For the next hour and a half, they played pretty much all their hits such as ‘Sun Hits The Sky’, ‘Moving’, ‘Richard III’, and ‘Grace’ (who they dedicated to a girl called Grace, which had an audience member shouting “I’m Grace” and another person yelling “I’m Grace” with Micky and Danny yelling “I’m Grace” and “I’m Grace, and so is my Wife!” Glad to see an impromptu Monty Python reference at the gig). Of course they played their biggest hit ‘Alright’, which is a song about youth - a little ironic considering the band are now in their mid-late 40’s and, as a sign of their “ageing”, Gaz forgot some of the lyrics, but the crowd helped him (in fact, the crowd were fantastic throughout the whole gig singing along with every single track)! They ended around 10:30PM and finished with one of their biggest hits ‘Pumping On Your Stereo’ from the self-titled 1999 album with the crowd shouting for it and singing the opening before Gaz had even got to the mic.

What can I say, they were totally awesome and the night felt like a massive triumph for fun, happy, irreverent good-times music. All the band members seemed to be thoroughly enjoying being back together on stage and performing to an ecstatic capacity crowd. The bottom line is, Supergrass were (and still are) amazing, and I’m hoping the massive success of this reunion tour will lead them to make a new album.

Hope you enjoyed reading the review and that you get to grab a ticket to see them - you won’t regret it!

Rory