Supergrass
Town and Country Club, Leeds

Gaz and the boys are on top form as they rip through their back catalogue. They remain the perfect, three-guy, bullshit-free zone, just white-knuckle pop thrills as their tunes race into your heart at 100mph. 'Richard III' coves over all AC/DC on prozac and offers the first suggestion of the night that the boys aren't here to piss about. "Oh shit. I've gotta get used to all this again," groans Gaz as the place turns into a heaving sea of humanity, before launching into 'Strange Ones' and causing even more devastation. 'Alright' is given the Stars In Their Eyes singalongaGaz treatment. 'Sun Hits The Sky' is the undoubted high point, genuine emotion flowing through the song, the band, for the first time tonight, sounding like they're off autopilot. The 'Grass have always had the enviable knack of writing disposable pop tunes that stick in your mind and linger into the early hours of the morning. New single 'Pumping On Your Stereo' is another song destined to soundtrack days and nights of madness this summer. Gone are the cheeky grins and, in their place, something almost approaching maturity as an acoustic version of 'Pretend It's Not Me' suggests a bona fida love song may not be out of reach. 'Jesus Came From Outer Space' reminds us, however, that this is, after all, a Supergrass gig - comedy name, indecipherable verses and instantly memorable chorus. Maybe it's just Gaz's sidies or the teeth-jangling volume of tunes so catchy they're part Ebola, but Supergrass are fast turning into Slade: three and a half minutes of genius pretending it's thick as two short planks - that's a Supergrass song. 'Caught by the Fuzz' brings things to a suitably sweaty end in a burst of star-jumps and feedback, as they prove beyond a doubt that, tonight at least, we're all crazee now.

Phil Probert, Flipside - 29 May 1999