If you can’t believe it’s 30 years since the era- defining album I Should Coco was released by Supergrass, then you’re not alone, and we will be busy pretending that the rocking tunes were not the soundtrack to our teenage years, and that ‘Caught By The Fuzz’ didn’t make us feel a little bit excited about the idea of being picked up by the cops.
The Supergrass worldwide tour celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the album release is further proof, not only of the passage of time, but that the UK band who were themselves teenagers when they broke out, have still got what it takes to rock a room to life.
In what is not surprisingly a heavily UK- focused tour, the group came to Australia for a four-show run, including a Tuesday night at the best venue of them all, the Sydney Opera House.
Rocket Science opened for the headliners. They describe themselves as playing trashy-psychedelic-garage-punk with new wave, no-wave art-punk enthusiasm. It sounds about right and anyone who missed the Melbourne based warm-up act missed out. Hits of theirs like ‘Heroes on the Wall’ and ‘Copycat’ set the evening up with a bit of swagger and were able to stand their own against what laid ahead.
Gaz Coombes, still instantly recogniseable, strode out and made the stage his own. Playing the Opera House was clearly a special occassion for the band, and Gaz told the crowd that they never imagined they’d be performing I Should Coco in such an iconic room, and so long after the initial release. Danny Goffey electrified the music on drums and sometimes guitar, while Mick Quinn on bass and Rob Coombes on keys kept everything tight, despite a couple of tech issues being thrown up.
Since forming in Oxford UK in 1993, Supergrass have received nods from the BRIT Awards, NME Awards, Q Awards and Ivor Novello Awards and are widely recognised as one of the most influential bands to emerge during the 1990s. They first broke onto the Britpop scene with their Mercury-nominated UK #1 debut album I Should Coco in 1995 with its fourth single ‘Alright’ catapulting the band to global success.
Five acclaimed studio albums followed – In It For The Money (1997), Supergrass (1999), Life On Other Planets (2002), Road To Rouen (2005), Diamond Hoo Ha (2008) – before the band announced their split in 2010, all going on to lead successful careers. To mark their 25th anniversary, The Strange Ones: 1994 – 2008 was released in January 2020 along with Live on Other Planets (Live 2020).
Playing the whole album in order meant it wasn’t long before we got to the hits that everyone had come for. As if ‘Caught by the Fuzz’ and ‘Mansize Rooster’ weren’t enough, the Opera House went ballistic with the first notes of ‘Alright,’ meeting the amped up energy of the band by getting up out of those Opera House seats and dancing the night away. ‘Lenny’ nearly took everyone over the edge.
Having got through the album, the audience were treated to some of their best tracks from other records. ‘Richard III’, ‘Mary’, and ‘Pumping on Your Stereo’ landed perfectly.
The tour continues in Europe through the northern hemisphere summer, and they’re heading to Mexico and North America in September, a complete win for their once- teenage fans around the world, and plenty of younger audience members who are checking out what all the fuss is about, and where that ‘Alright’ song they’ve definitely heard before comes from. If you’ve the chance to catch Supergrass down the track, then do!
SUPERGRASS
Sydney Opera House
10th June 2025
Caught by the Fuzz
Mansize Rooster
Alright
Lose It
Lenny
Strange Ones
Sitting Up Straight
She’s So Loose
We’re Not Supposed To
Time
Sofa (of My Lethargy)
Time To Go
Richard III
Late In The Day
Mary
Moving
Sun Hits the Sky
Pumping on Your Stereo
