The Comeback
Oasis, London , 1994 © Kevin Cummins
I can’t help myself. No sooner have I ditched my old website with its myriad references to enigmatic popsters Prefab Sprout than I’m writing an article about enigmatic popsters Prefab Sprout. Well, not quite. As I said it’s the periphery of things that interest me.
In April 2000 I went to see Prefab Sprout at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow. This was in the days of phone ticket sales and, amazingly, when I had called the box office I had been offered two tickets in the front row of the stalls. This was like having singer and gutarist Paddy McAloon, and bass player, brother Martin in my front room. No one in the audience knew it at the time, but this was to be Prefab Sprout’s last tour, Paddy since suffering from serious hearing issues which prevent him recording new material or appearing live.
These days my preferred duration for a concert is - tops - 90 minutes, ideally 70 minutes. Just pack in the hits, maybe an obscure cover version, and, if you want to endear yourself to a Scottish audience, drag on a piper as you return for a quick encore. But two, three, four hours? GTF. But that night in Glasgow 24 years ago Paddy sang 30 songs, a career retrospective, every one a gem: Bonny, Faron Young, Cars and Girls, Moving The River, Appetite, Goodbye Lucille #1, Jordan The Comeback, Cruel, even Cowboy Dreams which he wrote for Jimmy Nail. I can’t remember how long the concert lasted, but it was way beyond 70 minutes and I loved it.
The only downer on the evening was two lads in the row behind who, from the off were singing along. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have an issue with this, guilty myself, and accept that is part and parcel of the concert going experience. But these two were belting out every single word of every song. It was like an early experiment in quadraphonic sound gone hideously wrong. After a while, my friend politely (to be honest, not that politely) explained that we had come to hear Paddy sing and could they pipe down.
I suspect there’s going to be quite a lot of that next August at Murrayfield when Oasis play. That’s if the Gallagher brothers haven’t fallen out by then, the 11th and 12th dates of their reunion tour. That - and the distinct possibility that the concert will be at least two hours long - kind of puts me off buying a ticket. The other thing is that I can’t make up my mind if I still like them.
There was a time when I very much did. Early December 1994 I saw them at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom. At this point they had released only one album but that album was Definitely Maybe and had spawned singles Supersonic, Shakermaker, Live Forever, and Cigarettes & Alcohol. Unfortunately, after a couple of songs, Liam lost his voice, or lost something, and stormed off stage. After a pause Noel played a short accoustic set, apologised but said to hang on to our ticket stubs (old school!) because they’d be back.
It seemed unlikely but two days after Christmas, Oasis returned to the Barrowlands. Perhaps it was because it was the time of year but the band seemed pleased to be back (Liam smiled), they gave a truly electrifying performance, and the famed Barrowlands sprung floor only just coped with a delirious 1,900 capacity crowd. That night we were all rock and roll stars.
I won’t have been the only Gen-X who has been listening to Definitely Maybe today. After that - Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova, canapés with Tony Blair - it was all downhill, apart from the rather lovely John Lennon-esque Let There Be Love in 2005. But 30 years on that debut album has stood the test of time. Of course it’s derivative, everything is, but songs like Columbia and Rock ‘n' Roll Star are stone cold classics.
If Oasis only play from that album in August I’ll definitely go to see them. But for now it’s a maybe.