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Supergrass & Ultrasound
Glasgow: Barrowland, Wed 12 May
On the face of it, Supergrass and tonight's support act, Ultrasound, couldn’t be more different. The Oxford three-piece are known for being young, cute and jaunty while Wakefield’s new~proggers are more regularly labelled old, fat and heavy. But the two bands have more in common than meets the eye. Both feel so guilty about their 3 innate ability to write tooth- l achingly catchy pop tunes that they bury these gems under layer upon layer of 'serious‘ rock effects.
Ultrasound are not at their phenomenal best tonight. This isn’t their kind of crowd, and their set is sluggish, forced and ill tempered. Still, when they finish with the epic ’Everything Picture' and bassist Vanessa Best launches into the orgasmic, operatic howl of a coda, you don't envy Supergrass having to follow them.
Of course, Supergrass were probably too busy riding choppers, combing their sidies and, erm, pumping on your stereo to even notice they had a support band. They amble amiably on stage and, before anyone has time to notice that Gaz is wearing the kind of tie-dye T- shirt that Jerry Garcia would reject as tasteless, fire into the Stooges-aping ’Richard lll'. From there on in it's a mixture of all the singles and a clutch of new material. The new stuff is resolutely mid-paced, making the most of Gaz’s brother who bolsters their live sound with Hammond riffs. 'Out Of The Blue' has a retro, rootsy, R8iB sound not unlike The Yardbirds, while 'Mary’ owes more to the groovy swirlings of the Spencer Davis Group. The old songs are greeted with predictable
ROCK Ben Folds Five
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closing ’Caught By The Fuzz'. The great thing about Supergrass singles is that there’s so much more to them than the catchy choruses; they can always be relied upon to shoehorn in a theremin solo or riff-fest just when you least expect it.
Supergrass should be a great live band, but somehow they’re not. The essential ingredients are there - great songs played perfectly — but there’s nothing to really love. They complain about being perceived as a cartoon band, but they never give enough of themselves away to fill out those rough sketches that define them. They are like Blur without the intellectual baggage - empty, soulless, lacking substance. This could have been brilliant, but it was just . . . alright. (Peter Ross)
lflt‘ sell-out last night of their British tour Tie delinit'on-defying trio have attracted an equally hard to characterise crowd, all of whom are here to t'vorship at the altar of the mighty Ben The roar of the trains <1~veiiieau is but a fairy's whisper (inr'iparezl 2-0 the soul-moving sound coming from :ne stage This band .iitn a l;<?‘.el'rlrllenl health the effect of thezi ireifttriiziince Bits-lines turn your -~"Slil(?‘, to pai'y, beats puni'ne! your
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Edinburgh: The Bongo Club
'lt’d be great if yOu could manage to i describe Our music,’ says J Simon van der Walt, artistic director of Glaswegian ten-piece invention ensemble, 'because we haven’t got a clue ' Hmm, tall order, that. Their's is ; the kind of sound that really does defy ' definition. Suffice to say, they are a group of supremely talented, multi- insuumental musicians, playing original compositions influenced by, among other things, rock, classical, jazz, Tom Waits films, Bulgarian folk dances, computer games and everyday 3 household items SOunds bizarre? Well,
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all that, and when music's this good, who cares about labels7
(Kirstv Knaggsl
invention ensemble l
RATINGS Uninissable j Very good Worth a shot , Below average
STAR
i :z: You've been warned j .