ALEX JAMES’ ‘BRITPOP CLASSICAL’ – BRIGHTON CENTRE 15.3.26
From the backs of wardrobes and under piles of sensible pullovers come the half-forgotten T-shirts and hoodies that have not seen daylight in many a summer.
Stretched over larger bellies than in times past, like battle-scarred standards from an ancient war they bear the names of old campaigns burned into the consciousness of the generations – Knebworth, Wembley, Spike Island and the Isle of Wight to name but a few.
Their creases, stains and rips bear witness to the feats of endurance suffered by their wearers through long marches across muddy fields in search of stage or sustenance and tonight they are back – because so are the nineties.
There is a liberal sprinkling of garments among the packed audience celebrating Blur, Pulp and Oasis – I even spy an arriviste Live In ’25 sweatshirt – as the bright young things of 30 years ago reassemble to forget their mortgages, mistakes and man boobs for a night of unabashed nostalgia.
Blur bassist Alex James is doing for Britpop what has already been done for reggae, rave and Rachmaninov by splashing it across the broad, baroque canvas of a 40-piece orchestra. Fittingly for a man who these days produces curds by the lorryload, this feast for the senses is unashamedly cheesy and heightened by cameos from some of the stars of those sweary, mad for it days.
The evening at the Brighton Centre is broken up into six suites, the first of which acknowledges the bands and the performers whose music influenced the Britpopsters – The Who, The Beatles, The Kinks, T-Rex and Bowie – in a lightning, decade spanning medley.
The second suite fast forwards to 1996 when Ocean Colour Scene’s Simon Fowler and Republica’s Saffron sprackling belt out ‘The Riverboat Song’ and ‘Ready To Go’ respectively.
The format works well with the orchestra’s strings and brass sections adding a rich, cinematic expansiveness to the songs while James on bass, two guitarists, a drummer and backing vocalists add their own weight and a light show pulses and refracts in time to the music.
On both numbers the singers showcase voices that have lost none of their edge, even if they aren’t quite as sprightly about the stage. Later on, Reef’s Gary Stringer is just as powerful with a rendition of ‘Place Your Hands’.
The format works less well when the original singers are not present and the songs are delivered adequately, but not movingly, by the touring company’s own singers. The absence of the performers who made the songs famous is only accentuated by their images on the big screen.
But that’s probably nit-pickery and not in keeping with the evening’s Proms spirit.
Throughout, the orchestra is magnificent in the swirling scope of its interpretations of familiar hits from Oasis, Pulp, Joy Division, The Charlatans, Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses and Chumbawumba. The audience is indeed back up again at every chorus as their voices echo around the hall in a lung-busting communal karaoke.
Naturally Blur feature heavily with three songs, the most popular of which is ‘Park Life’, joyously delivered by the one and only Phil Daniels, whose bow-legged, elbow jerking, cockney wide boy delivery features plenty of ham to go with all the cheese. His Gor Blimey moment is a true show-stopper.
The orchestra really gets to flex its musical muscle on three numbers, the stirring ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ and the show-ending ‘The Universal’ (the third Blur song), which is segwayed into from ‘Last Night Of The Proms’ favourite, Holst’s ‘Jupiter’. It would really have been something if it had been left to its own devices on these without the singers.
Britpop has always defied description, being more a time and a place rather than a quantifiable genre. It isn’t even always British, as the inclusion of Swedish hit ‘You & Me Song’ from The Wannadines shows.
As Jo Whiley says in the evening’s introductory film, over a montage of Liam looking angry, Jarvis mischievous and Brett enigmatic (why no Suede songs by the way?), the Britpop era was just a time where everything felt possible and everyone felt confident, or at least that’s how it is recalled.
This show did nothing to tarnish that memory.
Alex James’ ‘Britpop Classical’ setlist:
(Opening video)
Suite 1: ‘Heritage’:
‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ (The Who)
‘Help!’ (The Beatles)
‘Rebel Rebel’ (David Bowie)
‘Get It On’ (T.Rex)
‘Waterloo Sunset’ (The Kinks)
‘My Generation’ (The Who)
Suite 2: ‘High Energy’:
“Orchestral Intro”
‘Riverboat Song’ (with Simon Fowler) (Ocean Colour Scene)
‘Ready To Go’ (with Saffron) (Republica)
‘Alright’ (Supergrass)
‘Unbelievable’ / ‘Connection’ (EMF & Elastica mash up)
‘Song 2’ / ‘Teen Spirit’ (Blur & Nirvana mash up)
Suite 3: ‘Madchester’:
‘F*cking In The Bushes’ (Oasis)
‘Rock N Roll Star’ (Oasis)
‘Step On’ (Happy Mondays)
‘The Only One I Know’ (The Charlatans)
‘I Wanna Be Adored’ (The Stone Roses)
‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (Joy Division)
Suite 4: ‘Britpop, Feelgood, Laddish’:
‘Country House’ (Blur)
‘Place Your Hands’ (with Gary Stringer) (Reef)
‘You & Me Song’ (The Wannadies)
‘Girls And Boys’ (Blur)
‘Tubthumping’ (Chumbawamba)
‘Parklife’ (with Phil Daniels) (Blur)
Suite 5: ‘Orchestral’:
‘Bittersweet Symphony’ (The Verve)
‘Creep’ (Radiohead)
Suite 6: ‘Singalong Anthems’:
‘There She Goes’ (The La’s)
‘Disco 2000’ (Pulp)
‘Common People’ (Pulp)
‘Wonderwall’ (Oasis)
‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ (Oasis)
Suite 7: ‘Encore’:
“Dramatic Orchestral Intro Jupiter” (Holst)
‘The Universal’ (Blur)
