REVIEW: Supergrass – Live On Other Planets

The forever infectious sights and sounds of Supergrass are brought bang up to date with their sharp new live album Live On Other Planets. Recorded on their whirlwind reunion tour at the start of 2020 the band sounds as fluid as they ever did, there’s no lapse in energy from start to finish, which you might have thought would be a given considering they were young and ran green back in the early 1990’s when they burst on the music scene with their youthful, enthusiastic anthems which breached Ska, guitar pop, psychedelic and merged those sounds into a sound that left their audience in raptures.

Kicking off with their nudge towards Frank Zappa, In It For The Money lurches and creeps towards the speakers before bursting into action with Gaz Coombes screaming out the lyrics for all to hear, his vocals haven’t lost any of their emphatic energy, something that is also clearly evident on Richard III, Danny Goffey’s charging drums intro would give the duel drums of Adam and the Ants a good run for their money, it was Goffey’s drums that were at the heart of the bands previous live sets and just as he did in the bands heyday, his wild arms almost Animal from the Muppets style is back with a vengeance.

Further highlights in the set include the wailing blues of Time, a personal favourite, Rebel In You sounds almost too good to be true, the band deliver the bouncy beat with perfection, infectious echoing backing vocals come from the dark shades of Mick Quinn, Grace is another charming stomper with Rob Coombes keys higher in the mix than I can remember them being, which is no bad thing, there are of course many of the bands top 40 smashes in the guise of Moving, Mary, Pumping On Your Stereo with audience participation, whilst Caught By The Fuzz gives a frenetic finale, the one sad omission is Mansize Rooster, but we’ll forgive the hair bear bunch on this occasion.

Sadly with COVID arriving at the end of their tour this saw the band having to take back seat but here’s hoping they are sitting up straight, ready and raring to go through the gears again once we get back to normal. A magnificent set delivered by one of the best bands to come out of the British isles.

Live On Other Planets is available via the following link