PCC LIVE! Supergrass

Friday evening, May 5, 2000, approximately 8 p.m.: I'm standing in front of the soundboard (if it doesn't sound good here, it won't sound good anywhere) facing the stage of Axis, a dance club across Boston's Lansdowne Street from Fenway Park, which, like tonight, occasionally features live acts. The crowd skews male, although not overwhelmingly, younger than me (44) predominantly, but older than the members of Supergrass, the up-and-coming (we hope) British band we're anxiously awaiting. Roadies and guitar techs fiddle around with the equipment on the stage, then make their way to the wings.

The house lights go down and the audience roars as Supergrass take their places, left to right: Gaz Coombes, with his array of guitars, his close-cropped hair and unlikely sideburns; Danny Goffey, like a beanpole behind the drum kit at center stage; Mickey Quinn, the chunky, ever-grimacing bass player to the right. Behind Mickey, in the shadows, Gaz's brother Rob is hunched over the keyboards, scarcely visible, inexplicably not a full, official member of the band. (What's up with that? Too old?!)

What we hear, and what happens when we hear it: First, there's a big, monolithic chord from the band; a furiously rocking groove kicks in, and Gaz starts to sing, "There's a place where the strange ones go." From there, the sound and the associations reverberate: we hear the Beatles, the Who, the Kinks, the Small Faces; skip ahead a decade and we hear the Attractions, the Undertones, the Buzzcocks, Cheap Trick; some of us (not me) go so far afield as to hear Supertramp or Smashing Pumpkins; we hear one-shot garage bands and pop-rock legends vying for position, shifting in and out of focus, somehow all turning into the distinctive voice of Supergrass as it spirits us back to our first musical awakenings, to the first stirrings of the impulses that made us music lovers in the first place. How can they be so eclectic and so pure; how can they embody such abandon and such precision, all at the same time? It seems like some sort of miracle, one that plasters an involuntary grin on my face and blots out the rest of the world for a little while. And they make it all look so easy.

With minimal stage patter and no stupid posing or histrionics, song follows hard upon song: the alternately ethereal and dance-grooving "Moving," the high-energy explosion of "Sun Hits the Sky," the irresistible good cheer of "Alright," the anthem of their UK "moment" of (gulp) five years ago, each one hookier and more inspired than the last. OK, with the exception of the lame "Jesus Came From Outta Space," which lets the air out of the balloon just a bit. But maybe they did that on purpose, to prevent the balloon from exploding. Gaz sings the indelible melodies in a voice low and insinuating, then high and keening, with Mickey across the stage harmonizing, octavizing, upping the ante with each chorus. A wall of sound emanates from the four musicians, but the textures embedded within shift mercurially; the guitar emits power chords, then solos delicately; the drums alternately maintain a deep Ringo pocket and explode in Moon-like eruptions. All in service of the compact, varied, inventive and unselfconscious songs.

There are moments in the set when the exuberance of the music induces entire sections of the audience to start jumping up and down in tempo, as if they expect to levitate. In some of those moments, the expectation seems not unreasonable. These guys appear to have it all; they combine a range of qualities instinctively and seamlessly, not unlike the early Beatles. Of course, this is a different, more fragmented and less innocent point in the history of pop culture, but that weaving together of so many threads with such unforced grace leaves my friends and I shaking our heads and wondering how Supergrass has so far avoided breaking big in the States, and how they could possibly miss this time, with a new label behind them and a video in regular rotation on MTV, which apparently still airs music videos from time to time. Of course, the cynical side of me insists that "music video" should be an oxymoron, but theirs, for their current single "Pumping On your Stereo," is whimsical and fun and manages not to damage the spirit of the song it advertises, so I won't quibble this time.

I find it difficult to describe Supergrass to people (there's no "high concept"), and summarizing them sometimes makes them sound somehow frivolous, but that word misses the mark. To me, they make skillful use of the tools employed in much of the pop music I've loved since I became aware that pop music existed when I was 10, to express a sense of joy and wonder at the world--and in so doing, they remind me that I can choose to experience that sense as well. Ultimately, I suppose it doesn't matter whether Supergrass breaks through in the US (although it would be nice, just to increase the chance that there might be something decent to listen to on the car radio). For me, for right now, it's enough that they exist and that I've had the opportunity to hear them and see them and to have them make my ears young again. If the radio in your car sucks as bad as mine does, they might just do the same for you.