Supergrass
Somerset House, London - 04 August 2005

These are tricky times for Supergrass. There was something faintly incongruous about a band approaching middle age still performing the splendid Caught By The Fuzz, the tale of a youthful arrest, with its memorable couplet, "here comes me mum/She knows what I've done".

After all these years, their mother would, in all likelihood, be prevented from collecting her offspring by infirmity. Such, then, are the difficulties facing a band who will forever be defined as teenagers - the eternal youth they never asked for - no matter how they develop or how expertly singer Gaz Coombes trims his once-simian sideburns.

At the ever-beautiful Somerset House (although its charms were more elusive when the rains briefly came), Supergrass attempted to sneak into maturity by playing a third of their set sitting on stools like a self-conscious Crosby, Stills And Nash and covering Gill Scott-Heron's unquestionably adult Lady Day & John Coltrane.

Nobody was fooled into seeing the foursome as muso statesmen for a moment, although the new single St Petersburg is certainly their most thoughtful three minutes.

Instead, the crowd wanted hits. They got most of them (but not Alright, the band's most popular and most annoying single) and a smattering of elderly album tracks such as the still joyful Strange Ones and Sitting Up Straight, which has aged less well.

The result was a strange tug of war between a band desperate to evolve and an audience who cannot let them. The twain did meet intermittently, most notably on the complex Sun Hits The Sky, the ever-buoyant Richard III and the soaring opener Moving.

Despite being disastrously titled Road To Rouen, Supergrass's forthcoming album marks a major step forward. Whether they can take with them those who still holler along to Caught By The Fuzz is another matter entirely.

John Aizlewood, Evening Standard - 05 August 2005