SWG3, Glasgow
17-10-24
Its 1994 all over again; from the moment Courtney Love hired a hitman to slay Kurt Cobain, thus deflowering & decapitating the great flower of grunge that had spread its petals all over British music, so did the ‘Lads Rock’ movement shoot its head thro the green earth of popularity & became, proverbially, Britpop. Suede, Pulp, Elastica, Blur, & of course, Oasis, all shot to prominence with their jangly guitars & attitude driven-songs, alongside which luminaries were York’s finest, the supertight, melody-dripping quartet, Shed Seven.
There is a spirit of nostalgia sweeping through these times. The kids are maturing into the critical state of musical assessment, & admiring the Britpoppers with as much adoration as we old ‘uns did the the first time round. This fuels each band’s longevity, whose members from the 80s & 90 are now all in their 50s/60s – not quite eat-every-two-days-to-keep yourself young like the Rolling Stones, but getting there.
Shed Seven look great still, a wee bit grizzl’d here & there, but they can still bang out a bangin’ gig; & so it proved a couple of nights back at the SWG3 TV studio in Glasgow. The venue is great, right by a whole pearl’s bead’s worth of bohemian, renovated railways arches – its the West End’s musical Mecca. The occasion was Shed Seven’s ‘intimate’ 30th anniversarial tour of their first album, Change Giver, & what the splendid occasion it was.
I need to see you cause you look so good
I’ve got to touch you cause you said I could
You’ve got to listen to me
From ‘Casino Girl’
I’m a massive fan of their track Dolphin, which is on the album, but I’ll be honest, the only album of Shed Seven I own is A Maximum High, which I think is the best of all the Britpop Albums. Maybe if they’d have releas’d that one first their would have won the Britpop crown everybody was squabbling over, but as it stands Change Giver has never been high on my radar.
Until now, that is – what a joy to listen, for the first time in its entireity an album – live! There was some great stuff in there, you can tell why Ocean Pie & Speakeasy were singles, really catching the spirit of those scruffy, pouting, beguiling Britpop times. There were perhaps only one or two album fillers n’all – the whole thing was a real, harmonious treat.
The room was lively & full of fans – in fact I spoke to one cool guy & his wife, & I’m like which of the bands that visit Glasgow compel you guys to go see ’em – & all of all the answers they could have given; “Well just Shed Seven really,” was the one. He wasn’t alone, as the latest T-shirts were being snapped up & worn left right & centre – Glasgow was up for this, like! It didn’t hurt that the band have only just releas’d one of their best albums ever, A Matter of Time, updating Britpop for Generation X, etc.
I can see why. Rick Witter is a proper ‘one for the people’ banter-bunny, bouncing about the stage, belting out singalong anthems via his lung’s supreme sonic capabilities, intersplicing with comedic asides which keep us all buzzing along on the guitar-choppy ride. Let’s hope they tour Maximum High, then, in 2026 – I’ll be there, & I’ll be bringing all my mates, for after all, when reviewing Change Giver in 1994, Select’s Roy Wilkinson prophesied there was, “enough here to show they could soon make a record to dwarf this one.”
Photos: Anastasia Devlin
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