Music review: Gomez, Academy, Glasgow

WHEN Southport’s Gomez emerged at the tail end of the 1990s, they were perfectly poised to hoover up the last remaining devotees of Britpop’s ingrained heritage sensibility; those who loved the genre’s musical harking back to record shops filled with pleasingly musty vinyl whose grooves rang with the sound of real instruments.

Gomez, Academy, Glasgow ***

This tendency was baked into the music of Oasis, Paul Weller, Ocean Colour Scene and more, and Gomez’ great success – particularly over their first three albums – demonstrated there was still a big audience for earthy blues with a playful but not too adventurous psychedelic edge.

Now on tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their second album Liquid Skin, the biggest surprise is how little both the band and their audience appear to have aged. The quintet’s line-up has remained unchanged since they were founded, and the equally unaltered tone of their music remains hugely popular with the audience, despite the first two-thirds of the set being given over to an in-order run-through of Liquid Skin itself.

That’s not to say the album’s in any way unpleasant, just that – the odd diversion into its big single Bring It On or the rockier plains of Devil Will Ride – it was a generally laid-back recording.

It’s hard to begrudge such fan service, because Gomez were always the type of band beloved of those who play both sides of a record from beginning to end, liner notes in hand; yet the fiercely roared choruses of Get Myself Arrested, Get Miles and the closing student anthem Whipping Piccadilly, which the audience flung back at them, emphasised just how much their success is rooted in their pop sensibility.

DAVID POLLOCK