Stepping back in time, the best of times
by Glasgow Jacky on 16/04/2025O2 Academy Glasgow - GlasgowRating: 5 out of 5Ocean Colour Scene
The O2 Academy is filled with 2,500 or so fans here to reminisce about their younger selves, back to the 90s and a time when Britpop held sway across the land.
For Ocean Colour Scene it's an opportunity to bask in the glory of songs written back in the day echoing across the venue with verse and chorus sung to the rafters by their adoring followers.
With Moseley Shoals 1996, Marchin' Already 1997 and One From The Modern 1999 providing the soundtrack to most of the set, the band set about recreating, in people's minds at least, the best of times from that period.
Unlike several bands of this era that we have witnessed playing a 'Greatest Hits' selection, there is a casualness to the way the band approach the evening. From the moment they arrive on stage and throughout the set, everything seems to be treated low key. The lightshow is minimal at times with only a few video sequences thrown into the mix to break things up. It's as if 6 guys have walked into a social club, saw some instruments on the stage and took hold of them to see what noise they might be able to make.
Frontman Simon Fowler kept the interaction with the audience low key too with only the odd interjection between songs, though he does encourage everyone early on to "sing along with us as the lunatics have taken over the asylum." The Glasgow audience didn't need a second invitation.
Kicking off with The Circle, the songs veer from indie rock to indie folk with the acoustic focused, lower tempo numbers often lost in the surrounding chatter of fans more intent on catching up with their mates. Given the quality of songs being sung and played from the stage, a bit of hush wouldn't have gone amiss.
No doubt the band are aware that they have to take a bit of a hit at times though tonight OCS remind us just how many hits they have had, how many songs have endured the passage of time.
They may not have received the worldwide exposure and adulation of their Britpop contemporaries, however there can be no doubt this is a band who have earned the right to be placed near the top of any list of successful bands that emerged, and still playing, from the 1990s.
Before, ending with crowd favourite, The Day We Caught The Train, the audience were treated to classic renditions of The Riverboat Song and Hundred Mile High City and during the 'quiet' period they brought fans back down a notch with Mrs Jones, Emily Chambers and She's Been Writing, complete with stunning harmonies.
Of the core band members, Steve Craddock played lead guitar with minimal excellence whether picking at the strings or strumming away while Oscar Harrison behind the drums kept up the steady rhythm that allowed the touring team to find their marks with ease.
There's nothing to suggest the band are seeking to be pioneers for the 2020s. That's probably a result of a sound that always seemed to be looking to the best of the past. The band can leave Glasgow with their heads held high with the audience no doubt nostalgic for that 90s.
Kula Shaker, opened the show. It would be unfair to suggest they were a mere support act though. They were Special Guests, and for their time on stage they treated us to a special performance.
With the 1996 album K offering the mainstay of tracks played, the band demonstrated a psychedelic edge to their songs that wasn't appreciated by this writer when they were released at the time.
Unlike Ocean Colour Scene, there was a flamboyance to their performance, aided in part by a mesmerising psychedelic light show that rebounded off the large curtain placed behind the band.
On the evidence of tonight's showing Kula Shaker can justify playing at venues like this on their own right.
Bassist Alonza Bevan, Jay Darlington behind the keys, frontman Crispian Mills and drummer Paul Winter-Hart are a tight unit, with guitar riffs as much to the fore as the lyricism of tracks like opener 303 and closing selection Govinda.
The highlight of the entire night though was their cover of Python Lee Jackson's "In a Broken Dream" Kula Shaker's signature '60s psych-rock shimmer adding a bit of gloss to an already classic song.
