Bring back the good times; Gomez is at the Carling Academy Newcastle on Sunday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the award-winning Bring It On album. Entertainment Editor GORDON BARR has the details

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), August 28, 2008

Byline: Editor GORDON BARR

GOMEZ are urging their North East fans to Bring It On.

EMI released a special 10th anniversary collectors' edition of the band's Mercury Prize-winning debut album on Monday.

It has led to the group to do a tour playing the record in full.

The five members of Gomez - Ben Ottewell (vocals, guitar), Tom Gray (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Paul Blackburn (bass, guitar), Oily Peacock (drums) and Ian Ball (vocals, guitar, harmonica) - played their first shows together in Leeds in late 1996 and soon began recording demos in Oily's dad's garage in Southport.

They aroused considerable interest and the group signed to the Virgin subsidiary label Hut Records in 1997.

The demos became their debut, Bring It On, which was praised in the music press on both sides of the Atlantic.

The group stood apart in its attitude and demeanour from the Brit-pop groups then in vogue, but what singled it out musically was the breadth and depth of its influences.

Typical of this was the comment from the panel of judges for the Mercury Music Prize, who described the album as "an intriguing blend of swamp blues, bar-room rock and eerie power".

Gomez won the competition's 1998 album of the year prize after edging out such stiff competition as Massive Attack's Mezzanine, the Verve's Urban Hymns and Pulp's This Is Hardcore.

The lads set out on their inaugural American tour in October 1998 and have continued to spend time touring the US in equal measures to the UK and Europe.

Liquid Skin followed in 1999 and the now-out-of-print rarities and B-sides compilation Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline was issued a year later.

A third studio album, In Our Gun, was released in spring 2002 and, soon after, Ian Ball relocated to Los Angeles, while still working with the rest of the band at their new studio in Portslade, England. The dozens of tracks recorded during this time were pared down and released on the Tchad Blake-produced Split the Difference in 2004.

By that time, Hut, the band's original label, was no more, allowing the group to sign directly to Virgin, although the two sides would part company later that year.

In 2005, they signed with ATO Records and released Out West, Gomez's first live album.

The most recent, and most successful album yet, How We Operate, followed in May 2006.

A retrospective collection of singles, rarities and unreleased tracks, Five Men in a Hut: Singles 1998-2004, was released by EMI later that year.

Gomez is living proof that perseverance and consistency are qualities to be proud of as the group has ridden out changes in fads to maintain its popularity.

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AWARD WINNERS - Gomez will be performing the whole of their 1998 album, Bring It On, at the Carling Academy this weekend