Supergrass, Barrowland, Glasgow review - nostalgia played with youthful energy

It is a family affair at Supergrass shows these days. There were plenty of parents and offspring filing onto the Barrowland’s famous old dancefloor, and during the encore a pair of excitable, bouncing teenagers turned around and started bellowing for their dad, off on the sidelines, to join in pogoing. He declined, but was singing along with vigour nonetheless.

That’s testament to Supergrass’s strength in writing catchy songs and having material that can resonate across generations. The sheer youthful exuberance of debut album I Should Coco, here being revisited in full, still comes across as much in  2025 as it did in 1995, and it was no surprise the scuzzed up youthful misdemeanour of “Caught By The Fuzz” and the summertime charm of “Alright” sparked delirium from young and old alike. It’s peak Britpop, but without the dated trappings of many records from that era.

Still, playing an album in full can be tricker to get right than you might expect, given some records are frontloaded with the big hits. Knowing exactly what’s coming next takes away some of the surprise and excitement of a live show as well. Yet such is the pep of I Should Coco that those concerns faded away. Those aforementioned hits, along with the terrific strut of “Mansize Rooster” and a bouncing, full-throated “Strange Ones” generated the warmest response inside the sticky sweatbox of a Glasgow venue, as well as  a barrage of middle-aged men trying to use their camera phones – a good night for fans of shaky, blurry clips of songs, for sure.

However  the key to the night was that the whole album holds up well. There was a barrelling rocker on “Lose It”, with Danny Goffey’s limbs becoming increasingly elastic as he drummed, an extended slice of blues’ flavored rock with “We’re Not Supposed To” and a wistful farewell with “Time to Go”, the hat-wearing Gaz Coombes then asking if there was an appetite for more. 

These songs weren’t revamped, or performed with an ironic eyebrow for times when being alright didn’t involve bills to pay and adulthood to navigate. Instead it was pursued with the zeal of teenage dreams, Mick Quinn’s head bobbing away on bass and a ferocious amount of noise generated. Almost too much at times, as Goffey’s drumming occasionally overpowered the whole sound, but this was thrillingly noisy stuff.

Such an attitude carried over into the second portion of the set, a no frills run-through of several hits throughout the trio’s career that served as an injection of sheer, undiluted endorphins. They rattled through the indie rock of “Richard III” and the piano powered “Grace” with energy and style, only pausing for a brief encore break before the wig-out vibe of “Sun Hits the Sky” and stomping closer “Pumping On Your Stereo”. By then all ages were on the dancefloor, limbs akimbo, voices hollering and youthful spirit thriving – no matter the age.

• More new music reviews on theartsdesk