Everybody’s got an Oasis story nowadays.
For the boys from Britpop contemporaries Dodgy, it’s a rambling one. From being supported by the Mancs when they were both on the way up, to being offered a support slot for the famous Oasis Knebworth gigs of 1996.
Instead of playing the biggest gigs of their career, the three-piece were touring war-torn Sarajevo. And in the process, they missed the chance to go on Top Of The Pops with their top five hit Good Enough. And within two years they’d split up.
But now they are back. Playing with the confidence and assuredness that makes it clear that they’ve been there, and done that, but now they’re satisfied to play a curtained off Whittaker Hall at St James to enjoy themselves and find a way to pay the bills.
The shame was I’ve been to better-attended gigs put on by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission at the same venue.
Because that aside, this was an absolutely terrific night out.
Dodgy attracts a crowd around my comfortable middle age. I’d be amazed if there was anyone in the room younger than 45, apart from the kids who came along with the middle-aged families.
But such is the timeless quality of the songwriting, it’s a performance that truly works for all ages.
Now I’m a Dodgy purist. The summer of 1993 involved regular late night practice sessions with the band I was in at the time, and early-hours drives home with the band’s debut, The Dodgy Album, rolling through its classics on the cassette player.
As a result I adore its 10 tracks. A dozen years ago, when they were touring its 20th anniversary, I headed off to Bristol to hear it, only to realise that this particular gig was smaller than the average and didn’t involve the full play back, just a stroll through a wide-ranging selection of old and new.
So I was hoping for some of the back catalogue classics, treating rather sniffily such top 30 hits as So Let Me Go Far, Staying Out For The Summer, In A Room and If You’re Thinking Of Me. And don’t get me started on the ubiquitous, slightly irritating, Good Enough.
I was so wrong. Yes, The Dodgy Album is still a classic but I was blown away by the entire canon, taking us from the early fan-favourite Big Brown Moon, part of a short acoustic session which fitted the vibe of the evening perfectly, through all the other albums, and even a new track, the single Hello Beautiful which comes out next month.
Not that many, any, will buy it. Quite possibly they’ve done like me, and put Dodgy on shuffle for the rest of the weekend, and realised that almost every track they’ve ever done is superb.
Rocky, tuneful and anthemic, this is subtle songwriting, where even the new stuff that they pulled together as 40-somethings (and that’s nearly 15 years ago now folks) doesn’t lose anything in comparison.
Think The Beatles and The Who, and if you’re focusing on the harmonies, as west coast as the Mamas and the Papas.
The hits – and the misses – all worked sensationally. And all delivered by lead singer Nigel Clark with the confidence and good humour of a grandfather entertaining his grandchildren (that’s us in the crowd, folks) for a couple of hours. His songs are individually-wrapped Werther’s Originals.
They closed with the triumphant triumvirate of Grassman, Good Enough and a cover of Frank Wilson’s Do I Love You (Indeed I Do). If the closer is a question, then the answer was an unequivocal yes.
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