So similar was Saturday night's gig to their last visit to the Point that it was easy to imagine that Ocean Colour Scene hadn't gone away at all, that they had been busking backstage for 18 months and had just been wheeled out for the night. They had the same retro riffs, the same clothes and the same boring old songs.
OCS so blatantly reconstruct Sixties rock that one wonders what the point of it all is. Everything sounds the same: monotonous strumming swamps terrible lyrics while riffs faithfully parody The Small Faces.
The latest single, Profit In Peace, thrown up second in the set, summed up the whole concept. Obviously trying to stop the Vietnam War, they (and most of the crowd) holler over and over: "We don't wanna fight no more." No More? When have they, any of their families or any of their audience, ever gone off to war? The whole thing is a preposterous, nonsensical facade.
Being retro is not a crime, but being a rock band that kicks no ass most certainly is. New ideas show people that things can be different. To shut them out completely is to deny what music is all about.