Supergrass, Sheffield Plug

As a special Christmas treat for the people of Sheffield, britpop legends Supergrass played a one of gig at The Plug as a warm up for their London date the next day. After decent, if unspectacular support slots from by Orange 38 and Jim Noir, Supergrass took to the stage as a five piece. The additional member is third Coombs brother (and former 22-20s man) Charlie, on second guitar and backing vocal duties. There’s an incredible amount of confidence emanating from the band, and rightly so. There’s very few acts operating today who have the same amount of live experience with the same line up as the four key members of Supergrass, and even fewer who have such a catalogue of iconic hit singles under their belts.

They open with ‘Diamond Hoo Ha Man’ from their latest record, it gets the crowd singing back, as does the phenomenal ‘Bad Blood’. However, it’s the hit singles from the ‘90s that really get the party atmosphere going. The intro of ‘Moving’ gets huge cheers, and for its juggernaut pop chorus the room is bouncing. It needs to be noted that for a pop band Supergrass are loud, the PA system was certainly cranked up for this gig, it sounds like Danny Goffey is playing his drum kit right next to us during the face melting ‘Richard III’.

Despite Gaz’s claims that he is a bit worse for wear due to Danny’s recent stag do, his voice is in fine form, still able to belt out songs from 1995 like ‘She’s So Loose’ with the vigour of the teenager he was when he recorded them.

Proportionally the set is mainly drawn from this years brilliant album ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’, with ‘Rebel In You’, ‘Outside’ and a punked up version of ‘The Return Of…’ getting aired, strangely in preference of some of their more well known songs (‘Lenny’ and ‘Grace’ were conspicuous by their absence). However, prior to the band departing we get ‘St. Petersburg’ and a joyous rendition of ‘Pumping On Your Stereo’, which pleases the crowd, no end.

We know there’s more to come however, we’ve been promised some surprises. And lo and behold, the band return to The Plugs stage with ‘Santa’ in tow. He proceeds to wreck havoc, throwing “fags and johnnies” into the audience and interfering with Gaz, Mick and Rob’s instruments. “Fuck off Santa” shots Gaz before apologising for St. Nicks inebriated state. The band then launch into a Supergrassic version of ‘Hark The Herald Angels Sing’ whilst Santa sets off a great big confetti cannon. At this point the festive feel of the occasion is complete and to top things off, to a backdrop of Christmas trees they play ‘Caught By The Fuzz’ which no Supergrass set would be complete without.

Despite the omissions no-one goes away feeling short-changed. We’re always grateful for a year which heralds a Supergrass release, for they’re truly one of a kind and this was a brilliant show just to prove it. Not that anyone would doubt it of course.