Live Review: Supergrass - Roundhouse, London 21/05/2025
Supergrass bring the rock n roll party to the Roundhouse in signature style.
Easing the crowd in tonight, main support Rialto have a very New Order Esque sound sound that gets everyone dancing in anticipation tonight. Their dance anthem ‘No-one leaves this discotheque alive’ is pure Pet Shop Boys, and feels like a hit with the crowd dancing along with the beat. Following on from first support Rizzy and the Gents, the two high energy performances perfectly primed the audience for the main act.
Opening with ‘I’d Like To Know’, Supergrass are received with a wild enthusiasm as if it were their Nineties halcyon days. Selling out three nights at the Roundhouse shows, alongside venues across the UK
including Swansea, Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, and Leeds, shows there is still a real appetite for the band and their cheeky Britpop sound. This tour kicks off the great Summer of Britpop nostalgia.
The first song from their seminal album ‘I Should Coco” has the memorable lyric ‘I’d like to know where all the strange ones go’ based on the locals in Crowley Road Oxford, of which drummer Danny said “They're the sort of people who don't fit in anywhere, who don't link up with everyday life at all”. The show marks 30 years of the UK No.1, Mercury-nominated debut album, which is played in full tonight.
In a cheeky aside to this Summer’s big reunion tour, Supergrass bassist Micky Quinn said “15th May 2025 marks 30 years since ‘I Should Coco'. Supergrass are thrilled to announce their return to perform the début album live, in its entirety, for the first time. Dynamic pricing not included.” The album now stands at over 1 million sales worldwide, and impressively, is the biggest-selling Parlophone debut album since The Beatles.
Much to their fans delight, the ever gregarious Gaz Coombes and his band of rock n roll rascals emphatically kick off their set with signature hits such as the rabble rousing, raucous ‘Caught By The Fuzz’ at a Roundhouse truly packed to the rafters tonight. The song references Coombes's arrest and caution for possession of cannabis aged fifteen with the youthful innocence of the lyric ‘If only my brother could be here now,He'd get me out, he'd sort me out alright’. Adorning the gigantic screen backdrop across the stage, the iconic menacing, wild eyed grins from the iconic ‘I Should Coco’ album cover, provide a fantastic backdrop.
True to form, the Britpop bad boys Supergrass channel the Nineties naughtiness that made them so irresistible back in their heyday tonight. Not ones to shy away from nostalgia, they are well aware of what their fans want to hear and spend no time mucking about in doing so, with the feverishly feel good euphoria of their trademark tune ‘Alright’ sending the crowd into wild hysteria early on in the set.
The punk tinged attitude of ‘Richard III’ and its lo fi, gritty guitar is another crowd pleaser that suitably ups the tempo. With its wistful opening, the penultimate song to the encore ‘Moving’ is exquisite as the opening builds gradually to a crescendo, the melody of Coombe’s lyrics expertly upping the ante, with the moving refrain ‘Got a low, low feeling around me, And a stone cold feeling inside’.
Encore classic ‘Pumping On Your Stereo’ fuels a stirring singalong as the Camden crowd revel in what has truly been an electric night of celebration on only the first of their three sold out shows here, as they show they’re only just getting started.
Words by Brendan Sharp
