The Britpop veterans are back on the road, 10 years on from the infighting that saw them self-destruct. The Observer joins them in Amsterdam
In a way, it’s incredible that Supergrass lasted as long as they did. That they survived the mania of Britpop having bounced into mainstream consciousness fully formed in 1995, with the three of them trolleying around on a bed in that video, young and free, their teeth nice and clean. Where Alright became an era-defining anthem as much as a career-bothering albatross that they later hated playing, they triumphed with the punky, eccentric immediacy of I Should Coco. It became Parlophone Records’ bestselling debut album since the Beatles’ Please Please Me.
The bare basics of what happened next could be taken as rock’n’roll textbook: drugs, chaos, a bonkers offer from
Hollywood (Steven Spielberg, very seriously wanting to make a TV show with them) and five more albums released to diminishing commercial returns, despite at least three of them (In It for the Money; Supergrass; Road to Rouen) being consistently great.