The other day, I realised that I was old - either that or that my friends were too young. It wasn't just my thirty first birthday, but that I found myself having to explain to two separate people who Ocean Colour Scene are...
If you were anywhere near Birmingham in the mid 90s it would have been inconceivable that anyone would not have known OCS, probably personally. London had Blur, Manchester had Oasis, Liverpool, God help them, had Cast...., we had Ocean Colour Scene. And they were visible. It wasn't just their appearance playing The Day We Caught the Train on Top of the Pops, or The Riverboat Song belting out every time TFI Friday came on, but you had a good chance of running into them down the pub - either the Flapper (behind Symphony Hall), or the Tap & Spile off Broad Street. OCS had a national profile, but largely only one that involved being attacked by the NME as purveyors of "Dad-rock." Thank you, Steven Wells... They sold out arenas though, because away from the press the UK is not short of people with taste - or, at least it wasn't - in the era of the X Factor frankly who knows....
Britpop has been accused of many things, probably most accurately of being a magpie genre; nicking a riff here and a middle 8 there and putting them together to create something less than the sum of its parts. At least OCS had the intelligence and taste to raid the back catalogues of some minor heroes - where Oasis spent their time listening to the Beatles, Birmingham's finest had immersed themselves in the back catalogue of the Small Faces and supped deep at the well of Northern Soul and the Wigan Casino.
On Friday night I took myself off to the Oxford Academy to see a band I last saw playing at the NEC to a crowd of about 20,000 in 1998. Timing to a perfection so as to miss the support act, I'd just got my first pint by the time they wandered on stage and struck up the first half of the set, which would see the seminal 1996 album Moseley Shoals played in its entirety. It was like being 16 again.
Simon Fowler always did have one of the most bell clear and distincttive voices of the 90s, and it hasn't suffered at all over the last decade - demonstrating a note perfect musical sensibility on everything from Robin Hood to Get Blown Away, and a storming, vocal chord tearing, rendition of Day Tripper at the end.
Steve Cradock demonstrated once again his claim to be one of the most technically proficient guitarists working in the UK, although it has to be said that the absence in live performance of the "5th member of the band", 90s producer Brendan Lynch, meant that the sound lacked some of the distinctive tape loops and squelch which typified Moseley Shoals and Marchin' Already.
Oscar Harrison was great on drums, and they really don't miss ex-bassist Damon Minchella. Great night all round really...
So, Ocean Colour Scene, then, poets of the Birmingham suburbs and small West Midlands towns; champions of the underdog; backing band by appointment to Paul Weller; and still standing. More importantly, still marching....
And where are the Undertones now then NME? In fact who even reads the NME these days....?
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