09 Feb 16 - Albert Hall, Manchester

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sunshine
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09 Feb 16 - Albert Hall, Manchester

Post by sunshine »

They played:
Night Thoughts: When You Are Young, Outsiders, No Tomorrow, Pale Snow, I Don’t Know How To Reach You, What I’m Trying To Tell You, Tightrope, Learning To Be, Like Kids, I Can’t Give Her What She Wants, When You Were Young, The Fur & The Feathers
Hits & Treats: Introducing the Band, Flashboy, Trash, Animal Nitrate, Filmstar, Sabotage, Obsessions (acoustic), So Young, Mickey, Beautiful Ones
Encore: Flow (acoustic), New Generation
sunshine
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Re: 09 Feb 16 - Albert Hall, Manchester

Post by sunshine »

Wednesday, 10 February 2016
Suede - Manchester Albert Hall - 9th February 2016
Suede made a triumphant return to Manchester to play a two-part set at a packed full Albert Hall, the first of which was played behind a screen showing the film to their latest album Night Thoughts which was played in order and then after a short interval a run through most of their biggest hit singles.
It's always difficult for what are classed disparagingly and disrespectfully by certain groups in the media and industry as "heritage bands" to release and promote new material, however good it might be, because of the constant wish of large parts of the audience to hear those songs that brought them to the band the first time round. Suede, like an increasing number of bands, have however refused to rest on their laurels and have recently released Night Thoughts, their second album since they reformed in 2010, and it's one of their strongest works to date.
The album is accompanied by a DVD that contains a film that the album is an imaginary soundtrack to and they've come up with the innovative concept of playing the album in full behind a screen that's showing the film. Stick with us, as we know that idea on paper looks preposterous and self-indulgent, but in fact it's a very clever way of holding an audience's attention and to have them focus on the new material without baying for the old favourites. There's no opportunity to shout for a big hit when Brett addresses the audience because he doesn't - they just move from one song to the next and people are transfixed to the screen and there's little of the usual mutterings from those who want instant gratification and shout "play one we know" revealing their own ignorance of the band they've just paid thirty quid plus to watch.
The album itself is possibly their strongest piece of work viewed as a continuum. Whilst it lacks the obvious hit singles - although we're certain Outsiders and I Don't Know How To Reach You would have bothered the Top Of The Pops schedulers at the height of Britpop - it has a rich purpose running right through the middle of it. Brett's voice sounds even more powerful than ever, enhanced, it has to be said, by the best sound we've heard in the Albert Hall so far. There's a wonderful flow to the album that translates wonderfully both to the film, although we're still not sure what the stories are meant to represent, as well as live performance. At points the band become visible behind the screen through clever use of lighting. It's a very bold statement to make to present a new album this way, to force your audience to listen to each and every song and to do it behind the veil of the projection screen, but it's an absolute triumph.
The second half is equally successful, but for very different reasons. It reads like one of the most impressive musical CVs of the past two decades - a band that retained its charismatic sound through turbulent times and even when the albums might not have been perfect as a whole (as Brett freely admits describing A New Morning as "crap with only three good songs" and Head Music simply as "OK") they still had songs of the calibre of Obsessions and Everything Will Flow which could fight their corner against the monolithic pillars of those first three albums. As they reel off Animal Nitrate, So Young and Metal Mickey from the debut, New Generation from Dog Man Star and Trash, Filmstar and Beautiful Ones off Coming Up, you see just how many great songs they have written and which they squeeze into this set.
There's a fabulous energy to the set as well. Musically they're on the money, the songs sound fresher and more vibrant than they've ever been and still feel modern and of our time, having aged to perfection. Brett belies a man close to fifty, shirt open, abs revealed, bouncing around and taking the show to, and into, the audience who push and shove to touch him, to be the focus of his attention for a nanosecond. It's an adulation that's reserved for special acts that have touched people and Suede prove tonight they've done that. The whole venue is on its feet and every word of those early songs are sung back with a bravado and gusto that takes Brett aback at points.
Tonight was a game of two halves, but Suede won them both with ease conquering the challenge of how to present new material to an audience that might not be familiar with it or be anticipating something different as well as proving their undeniable place in the realm of great British bands of the last twenty years with the second set.
Suede played When You Are Young, Outsiders, No Tomorrow, Pale Snow, I Don't Know How To Reach You, What I'm Trying To Tell You, Tightrope, Learning To Be, Like Kids, I Can't Give Her What She Wants, When You Were Young, The Fur And The Feathers, Introducing The Band, Killing Of A Flashboy, Trash, Animal Nitrate, Filmstar, Sabotage, Obsessions, So Young, Metal Mickey, Beautiful Ones, Everything Will Flow and New Generation.
Suede's official website can be found here. They are also on Facebook and Twitter.
http://www.eventhestars.co.uk/2016/02/s ... mment-form
sunshine
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Re: 09 Feb 16 - Albert Hall, Manchester

Post by sunshine »

10 Feb 2016
Review: Suede @ Albert Hall, Manchester
ChrisSlater
Britpop favourites Suede belted out some of their biggest hits at the Albert Hall on Tuesday night
'Britpop' was always an unsatisfactory and unfitting tag for many of the bands it ultimately consumed.None more so than for Suede who can rightly be credited with having kicked off the resurgence of guitar music in the early nineties. However there was always so much more to them than killer riffs and attitude. Although they did, and still do, have both in spades. "With the likes of Trash, Filmstar and the iconic Animal Nitrate it was pure hands-in-the-air, sing-along joy"
And they displayed everything that made them great as more than 2,000 people packed inside the Albert Hall to see their renaissance in full flow. Undoubtedly they have matured over the years but are still pushing the boundaries and thinking outside the box. This was a show split into two halves with the first seeing new album Night Thoughts, released last month, performed in full to the backdrop of an accompanying film. The group performed behind a giant screen displaying the silent movie, directed by acclaimed photographer Roger Sargent, and became visible through it as the lights flickered.
It was a bold idea and one that on the face of it may seem a little pretentious, but it worked a treat. Charismatic frontman Brett Anderson famously wrote 'No musos. Some things are more important than ability' on the advert for his first guitarist. But the group's musicianship, particularly that of lead guitarist Richard Oakes, is second to none as they inject emotion into the dark film and hold the crowd transfixed for an hour.
The unique format meant they avoided the obvious pitfall of people using new songs as a toilet or bar break, instead holding the room with the likes of Outsiders and latest single Like Kids. And it meant the second half was unadulterated, full-throttle nostalgia.
With the likes of Trash, Filmstar and the iconic Animal Nitrate it was pure hands-in-the-air, sing-along joy. Anderson is full of energy and probably spent more time in the arms of those populating the moshpit than he did on the stage. There was an air of Morrissey about him as he stood with his shirt open whirling his microphone around his head. But there's also a dash of Kurt Cobain thrown in for good measure with Metal Mickey and So Young great examples of their unique sound, a British take on the grunge. There were more tender moments. 'This is a good song from a crap album' said Anderson as he launched in a beautiful acoustic rendition of 2002's Obsessions. There was also a stripped-back take on the infectious Everything Will Flow. But barn-storming The Beautiful Ones and the aptly-named New Generation meant everyone left on a high. Forget Britpop, Suede are still firmly part of the new musical generation.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... l-10867715
sunshine
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Re: 09 Feb 16 - Albert Hall, Manchester

Post by sunshine »

10 February 2016
Suede review – perfect performance by the best older band around
5 / 5 stars
Dave Simpson
Albert Hall, Manchester
Brett Anderson and co act their age and yet turn back the clock in an exhilarating gig that covers mature new ground as well as past glories
Suede’s Brett Anderson recently told the Guardian that he sometimes has difficulty reconciling the duties of being a parent with being a rock star. There are no such problems here, as the 48-year-old demonstrates the manual of how to front a band. Shirt unbuttoned, he holds the mic with one hand and stretches out the other, before falling to his knees. This is all behind a semi-translucent screen: the singer is only fleetingly visible, yet is clearly giving it everything he’s got.
The screen in front of the band is showing photographer Roger Sargent’s dark film, Night Thoughts, while the band play their new album of the same name, turning the gig format into an event. The film’s subject matter – suicide attempts, fights, the loss of a child – is given even more emotional wallop as Anderson sings his heart out.
It helps that these are some of the best songs of the band’s career, which address themes they could have never tackled as young men. Anderson’s soaring primal scream on I Can’t Give Her What She Wants leaves the cheering audience visibly moved.
Having launched a heavyweight challenge for the title of best older band around, the second half of this 25-song marathon sees Suede rewind the clock to the days when a Melody Maker cover launched them as “the best new band in Britain”. The screen drops, and the mood switches from haunting to euphoric. Anderson stands on the monitor, holds the mic to the singing crowd, and yells Trash to the front rows. His banter is refreshingly frank: “This is a good song from a crap album,” he says, introducing Obsessions from 2002’s A New Morning, delivered acoustically by the singer and guitarist Richard Oakes. When Anderson’s first crowd interaction leaves his shirt unbuttoned to the naval, he comically, gentlemanly, carefully rebuttons it.
It’s a futile task, as each time the singer goes anywhere near the crowd, they risk arrest for molestation. Animal Nitrate, Metal Mickey, a storming New Generation and the rest are delivered with crunching guitars as Anderson swings the microphone and the front rows paw his bared six-pack. Brave, challenging, exhilarating and occasionally mildly outrageous, this is a perfect pop concert. Anderson should think carefully about unveiling these moves at parent-teacher evening, but by heck, he shouldn’t give up the night job.
At Olympia theatre, Dublin, 10 February. Box office: 00-353-1-677 8899. Then touring.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/f ... CMP=twt_gu
sunshine
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Re: 09 Feb 16 - Albert Hall, Manchester

Post by sunshine »

12 February 2016
SUEDE. Night Thoughts. Live Manchester Albert Hall 09 February 2016.
Written by Mark Reed
Walking the tightrope between looking forward.. and looking back.
At the sumptious Albert Hall in Manchester, a converted – and once derelict – church built in 1910 and now a Grade 2 listed building (nearest known equivalent, the now closed Que Club in Birmingham), there are quite a few people I know, and yet, I seem incapable of talking to most of them, for some reason, my brain is thinking I should talk to you and say hello and not have a kind of weird, crippling shyness and yet at the same time my brain goes no, I can't talk to anyone tonight, Not Happening, Sorry. And then when words leave my mouth they're not very good.
So yesterday was one of my 'not very good at talking to people' days.
With their seventh record, the top five, “Night Thoughts” - Suede, firmly established beyond the nostalgia circuit of their reformation, have mastered the elusive art of the middle aged – sorry, experienced - rock album. The majority of their peers, such as Pulp, Oasis, and so forth, have either descended into unproductive nostalgia touring the same handful of twenty year old hits... or gamely release mediocre records that sound like 20 year old b-sides, play one token song from it on tour, and then disappear back into... well, you get the very small picture. In the meantime, “Night Thoughts” has managed the rare feat of being a genuinely great record made by men not intent on capturing former glories but creating new ones of their own. They're an art band that rocks these days, not a rock band that hints at art.
The first half of the show sees the band performing the 12 songs from “Night Thoughts” in full and in order whilst the accompanying, non-linear silent film tells the tale that thematically matches the songs : lyrically the songs are dense and layered, and musically they follow a sort of thematic structure, as motifs, phrases, and elements, reappear from song to song and within each song. The film is chock full of trigger warnings for our sensitive souls, with the usual, pregnancy, suicide, death, drugs, and tragedy.
One thing that is fascinating with some artists is... seeing them grow older. Seeing artists change their concerns and their work so they reflect … not just who they are, but who they are now, how they reflect the world now, and what it is to get older, how your priorities change from gay animal sex, drugs, and bands and gangs, to the themes that “Night Thoughts” reflect, parenthood, children, responsibility, love, loss, age.. how to remain engaged in a world where culture is no longer interested in you, but in other people with disposable income and no attention span. Being AC/DC, and still going on about Sinking The Pink and Rock Shockers when you're 72.. much as I love AC/DC, that's just.. boring. Suede have remained firmly not in the boring camp. (And when they edged towards it, they split up for several years).
The film that they perform behind is.. by no means an easy watch : a domestic tragedy of a normal life. The whole thing builds to a chilling crescendo around when you realise that whatever you have done to get this far in life might simply not have been enough to make the battle worthwhile. Most bands don't touch this kind of subject matter. They're too chickenshit to do so, instead preferring to provide a pleasant Indie Disco for a nights escapism.
And Suede reward your patience. After a ten minute break to see the projection screen removed and a slight reconfiguring of the stage, they return for a brief, and powerful hour encore set : Alongside a set of staples that burn like fire - “So Young”, “Animal Nitate”, “Metal Mickey”, “New Generation”, “Trash”, “The Beautiful Ones” - there's the sight of an often barechested Brett singing from inside the crowd, or their secret weapon, multi-instrumentalist Neil Codling, or longstanding guitarist Richard Oakes, peeling off riffs that stadium rock bands would sell their desperate souls for. Alongside the known hits, there's also appearances for the rarely played “Introducing The Band”, and “Obsessions” (from the unloved pre-split “A New Morning”), both of which are appearing from the first time in a number of years. Having seen Suede quite a lot over the years, and having seen every lineup at every era, from the dingy pub days of pre-album shows to yesterday 24 years later, there's no doubt that Suede successfully walk the tightrope between looking back, and looking forward, of remaining relevant but respectful of their history, and of growing older in a young world with the kind of artistic vision intact. If only others could grow old quite so … brilliantly.
http://www.thefinalword.co.uk/content/view/1350/35/
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