“Treasure time and savour taste…”
I can still remember the (on reflection, admittedly small and embarrassingly geeky…) “online buzz” when one eagerly punctual forum user overheard Oceansize sound-checking with ‘Ornament / The Last Wrongs’. We, the enlightened few, (or perhaps those who just spent a bit too much time on the messageboard) couldn’t wait to hear how this mind-bending, earth-shattering, “Steve-Durose’s-deftness-with-choral arrangements-showcasing” 10 minute monster was going to sound live. Reports were positive. I think it was three or four days later at Nottingham’s gloriously grotty Rock City Basement that I first had the chance to see it… and bowled over I was. (Note: Given Nottingham Rock City’s notoriety for disco-load-outs, it’s probably a good job I got to the show four or five hours before doors, otherwise I might have missed it…cheers for keeping me company Ali, wherever you are…) This is about as close as Godless alternative music snobs like us had ever got to having a ‘hymn’, and it’s power and gravity as a piece of popular music has been matched by little else in the last decade.
Except, of course, for maybe track five, ‘Music for a Nurse’, probably the album’s most widely known track, and, thanks to the “kindly” people at Orange, the main reason why the band no longer has to plod about in “shit trainers” (their words, not mine…). I’ve got an intense connection with this song. I won’t spill all here, as, in the words of Steve Albini, “This is a sad fucking song and we’ll be lucky if I don’t burst out crying”. Suffice to say, I first heard the track live at Birmingham Academy 3 during the strangest week of my life, and upon later learning vaguely its subject matter, it has since gained a resonance and importance that makes it pretty difficult to listen to. I think they call it “hitting home”.
The album spawned a couple of singles, both crammed with enough ideas, hooks and badass musicianship to blow any Franz, Kaiser or Libertine out of the water, but I think we’re all pretty aware of the fact that this is the kind of music more suited to being absolutely fucking cherished by a select few, rather than momentarily appreciated by an anonymous many.
I think it’s just that which rendered Oceansize such a poignant part of my musical (and, perhaps more importantly, personal) growth. Most of the devout Oceansize followers knew each other, stayed at each other’s houses in order to make it to at least a couple of dates of each tour, and have since become integral parts of one another lives. We’ve been to weddings, exchanged baby photos, gigged with each other’s aspiring bands. We all share the pride of being able to say, “We were there, man” about a band that will undoubtedly achieve a cult status akin to some of their biggest musical heroes in years to come. I feel sorry for the people who got there too late to see this band rip the roof off of tiny, packed out venues like Leeds Cockpit and the Manchester Roadhouse with sonic behemoths like ‘You Can’t Keep a Bad Man Down’ and ‘A Homage to a Shame’. Yet by the same hand, I feel envious of the lucky sods who have yet to start listening to the unbelievably strong back catalogue of this incredible band.
Everybody I know who loved this band was absolutely gutted when they split (Features Ed: I actually cried). A couple of years on, I think we all probably find solace in the fact that Oceansize was a band whose output was never in danger of being branded mediocre, and perhaps they left us at the absolute peak of their creative powers.
Ages come and go. I’m glad I was around before this one left.
