Cooking with Gaz

Gaz Coombes – live @ The Glee Club, Birmingham, 09/02/15

Applause, then darkness.

“Hello Birmingham… I can’t see shit!”

As opening lines go, it’s certainly unusual, but occasional technical gremlins aside (the stage is accidentally plunged into darkness as the band comes on stage), Coombes seems perfectly at home in such an intimate venue, particularly when you consider that, in a previous life, he regularly played to tens of thousands of people at festivals around the world.

Touring in support of second solo album Matador, Coombes is quoted as saying that he just wanted to make a record he was into – and tonight it shows. Whereas Supergrass were seen as an integral part of the mid-90s Britpop explosion, Coombes is now at that enviable point in his career where he doesn’t have to be part of any ‘scene’. It’s an old cliché, but he really is making music for himself and if the rest of us like it then it’s a bonus – and, as it turns out, a lot of us DO like it. A LOT.

He still knows his way around a tune, of course. Matador’s strength lies in the way its songs manage to permeate your consciousness. When he plays album highlight 20/20 tonight, it feels like a song we’ve known all our lives, even though many of us (myself included) only heard it for the first time little more than a month ago.

“You’re one of the politest crowds I’ve ever played to,” he observes. And he’s right.  Tonight’s crowd may be somewhat reserved but it’s more through quiet reverence than lack of enthusiasm. It’s THAT kind of gig – the one which those who were there will still talk about in hushed tones in years to come.

Songs from Matador, such as The English Ruse, Detroit, Needle’s Eye and Seven Walls, sit comfortably among material from 2012 debut Here Come The Bombs, showcasing Coombes’ knack for writing epic, widescreen tunes incorporating stark electronica and even elements of Krautrock (the motorik beat and one-note repetition are evident here a few times) with compelling results.

Set closer Break The Silence (from the first album) becomes an extended glam rock disco stomper which gives Coombes an opportunity to introduce us to a backing band who have clearly enjoyed every second of tonight’s performance as much as their frontman. It’s only at this point that I realise Loz Colbert from Ride is the drummer.

He doesn’t play any Supergrass songs, of course – and he doesn’t need to. His solo material more than speaks for itself.