suede live: Ally Pally 30-03-13
suede live: Ally Pally 30-03-13
ON MONDAY 3rd DECEMBER SUEDE WILL ANNOUNCE DETAILS OF A VERY SPECIAL FORTHCOMING LIVE APPEARANCE
IN THE MEANTIME, KEEP AN EYE ON http://www.facebook.com/suede FOR DAILY UPDATES
IN THE MEANTIME, KEEP AN EYE ON http://www.facebook.com/suede FOR DAILY UPDATES
Re: suede live to be announced
suede will be playing at the Alexandra Palace in London on 30-03-2012. Tickets on sale on 07-12-12.
Re: suede live to be announced
And I will be going ![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
Re: suede live to be announced
http://www.nme.com/news/the-stone-roses/68296
January 22, 2013 12:51
The Stone Roses are just 'a couple of songs' into new album, says Suede's Brett Anderson
The Stone Roses have written two songs for their long awaited new album, according to Suede's Brett Anderson.
Anderson, who is soon to release a comeback album with his own band, revealed to NME that he had some inside information on the Manchester band's progress.
I spoke to Mani a couple of months ago - I saw him at a party - and he said they'd written a couple of songs.
The Suede frontman added that he is interested in hearing what the Roses come up with. He says: "I'd love to hear some new stuff from them. They were a really special band and i've got a lot of goodwill for them. It'll be nice to hear. Whether it's soon is another matter."
The Stone Roses, who originally split up in 1996, reunited last year and undertook a globetrotting reunion tour in 2012, including three sold-out gigs at Manchester's Heaton Park and a series of festival headline sets.
When the band reunited they signed a new two-album deal with Universal Records, but debuted no new material in their live sets last year.
Meanwhile, Suede will perform at Alexandra Palace in London on March 30. The gig announcement came at the end of a puzzle-style countdown Suede put on their Facebook page in December.
January 22, 2013 12:51
The Stone Roses are just 'a couple of songs' into new album, says Suede's Brett Anderson
The Stone Roses have written two songs for their long awaited new album, according to Suede's Brett Anderson.
Anderson, who is soon to release a comeback album with his own band, revealed to NME that he had some inside information on the Manchester band's progress.
I spoke to Mani a couple of months ago - I saw him at a party - and he said they'd written a couple of songs.
The Suede frontman added that he is interested in hearing what the Roses come up with. He says: "I'd love to hear some new stuff from them. They were a really special band and i've got a lot of goodwill for them. It'll be nice to hear. Whether it's soon is another matter."
The Stone Roses, who originally split up in 1996, reunited last year and undertook a globetrotting reunion tour in 2012, including three sold-out gigs at Manchester's Heaton Park and a series of festival headline sets.
When the band reunited they signed a new two-album deal with Universal Records, but debuted no new material in their live sets last year.
Meanwhile, Suede will perform at Alexandra Palace in London on March 30. The gig announcement came at the end of a puzzle-style countdown Suede put on their Facebook page in December.
Re: suede live: Ally Pally 30-03-13
I got my tickets last week! See you there y'all!
Re: suede live: Ally Pally 30-03-13
they played
barriers, snowblind, starts and ends, animal nitrate, metal mickey, we are the pigs, sleeping pills, float away, hit me, filmstar, flashboy, wild ones, pantomime horse, drowners, can't get enough, everything will flow, strangers, so young, trash, beautiful ones
encore: (sabotage), Saturday night, new generation
barriers, snowblind, starts and ends, animal nitrate, metal mickey, we are the pigs, sleeping pills, float away, hit me, filmstar, flashboy, wild ones, pantomime horse, drowners, can't get enough, everything will flow, strangers, so young, trash, beautiful ones
encore: (sabotage), Saturday night, new generation
Re: suede live: Ally Pally 30-03-13
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/musi ... eview.html
Suede, Alexandra Palace, review
Neil McCormick witnesses a rousing return for Brett Anderson and Suede, who might just be making one of the great rock comebacks.
4 /5
31 Mar 2013
Brett Anderson stands atop a podium and takes a pause in the middle of epic, yearning ballad Sometimes I Feel I’ll Float Away, while his band remain poised and silent, four blank-faced men dressed in black waiting for a signal from their preening, long-limbed leader. The crowd play the game too, not interrupting with peremptory applause, waiting for their cue. After a daringly extended break, Anderson breathily oozes back into the song with the arch phrase “I can count the times I forgot my lines and you pretended that you didn’t know” while the band slips in behind, building up to a thunderous noise.
“Ooh Brett, you’ve still got it,” sighs the middle-aged woman next to me.
What is particularly remarkable is that this is not some fondly remembered classic of stagecraft from Suede’s back catalogue, but a new song. Suede open with three tracks from their recently released sixth album, Bloodsports, and include four more in a swaggeringly confident 23-song set. It is material that matches the best of their back catalogue in terms of melody, drama, romance and attack, with Richard Oakes and Neil Codling’s bright guitar lines meshing and shining beneath Anderson’s mannered croon. Hit Me, another new song, has Anderson plunging daringly into the crowd, yelling “Sing it! Sing it!”. The audience oblige, with raised fists and “la la las”.
Ten thousand strong, with at least half the crowd made up of women (not always a given at a loud, standing rock gig), Suede's audience are in enthusiastic voice all night, although inevitably the big, nineties hits inspire the greatest lung power. Animal Nitrate, once so provocatively weird, becomes a beery singalong. On Trash, the crowd make a brave if not entirely successful attempt to hit the falsetto in unison. By the set’s end, thousands are bellowing “here they come, the beautiful ones”, as if in defiance of their own advancing years.
At Alexandra Palace, Suede confirmed that they are staging one of the great comebacks. In almost all respects they are slicker, grander, more purposeful than when they broke up, to mass indifference, in 2003. And yet there is, almost inevitably, the sense of something missing, or misplaced.
It is partly the 45-year-old Anderson’s sweaty, lad rocking enthusiasm, dressed in plain white shirt and black jeans, jumping up and down like a lanky bunny, throwing himself into the crowd yelling “sing it!” at every opportunity. Where is the poise and mystery (not to mention dress sense) that once set them apart from the pack?
And some rock stars just shouldn’t open their mouths on-stage. “We are the Suede group,” Anderson announces, as if introducing a corporate brand. “It’s lovely to be here. Gosh, 20 years ago yesterday was our debut album.” Twenty years ago, Anderson would have had himself up before a firing squad just for uttering the words lovely and gosh.
There was a time when Suede seemed destined to become one of the great groups, playing epic, fanciful rock with a preening, narcissistic frontman on a mission of self-discovery. In the hands of young men, this was music of melodramatic, romantic possibility, taking the spirit of early 70s Bowie and charging it with post-punk energy, the heavy guitar flourish of grunge and space rock possibilities of psychedelia. Suede are often cited as the pioneers of Britpop, but they promised something much grander and stranger.
Well, 20 years on, the music retains all of that flavour but, performed by middle-aged men, it has shed its liquid possibility and solidified into a camp fetishisation of wasted youth. At 45, Anderson is still singing (and writing) songs of forlorn, romantic disillusion and alienation. It is music that no longer aspires to greatness but settles for crowd pleasing. You could say the same of a lot of groups, of course, most of whom have never managed a comeback remotely as effective. After this show, I am genuinely interested in what Suede do next. They have re-established their base in unlikely circumstances. Can they still shoot for the stars?
Suede, Alexandra Palace, review
Neil McCormick witnesses a rousing return for Brett Anderson and Suede, who might just be making one of the great rock comebacks.
4 /5
31 Mar 2013
Brett Anderson stands atop a podium and takes a pause in the middle of epic, yearning ballad Sometimes I Feel I’ll Float Away, while his band remain poised and silent, four blank-faced men dressed in black waiting for a signal from their preening, long-limbed leader. The crowd play the game too, not interrupting with peremptory applause, waiting for their cue. After a daringly extended break, Anderson breathily oozes back into the song with the arch phrase “I can count the times I forgot my lines and you pretended that you didn’t know” while the band slips in behind, building up to a thunderous noise.
“Ooh Brett, you’ve still got it,” sighs the middle-aged woman next to me.
What is particularly remarkable is that this is not some fondly remembered classic of stagecraft from Suede’s back catalogue, but a new song. Suede open with three tracks from their recently released sixth album, Bloodsports, and include four more in a swaggeringly confident 23-song set. It is material that matches the best of their back catalogue in terms of melody, drama, romance and attack, with Richard Oakes and Neil Codling’s bright guitar lines meshing and shining beneath Anderson’s mannered croon. Hit Me, another new song, has Anderson plunging daringly into the crowd, yelling “Sing it! Sing it!”. The audience oblige, with raised fists and “la la las”.
Ten thousand strong, with at least half the crowd made up of women (not always a given at a loud, standing rock gig), Suede's audience are in enthusiastic voice all night, although inevitably the big, nineties hits inspire the greatest lung power. Animal Nitrate, once so provocatively weird, becomes a beery singalong. On Trash, the crowd make a brave if not entirely successful attempt to hit the falsetto in unison. By the set’s end, thousands are bellowing “here they come, the beautiful ones”, as if in defiance of their own advancing years.
At Alexandra Palace, Suede confirmed that they are staging one of the great comebacks. In almost all respects they are slicker, grander, more purposeful than when they broke up, to mass indifference, in 2003. And yet there is, almost inevitably, the sense of something missing, or misplaced.
It is partly the 45-year-old Anderson’s sweaty, lad rocking enthusiasm, dressed in plain white shirt and black jeans, jumping up and down like a lanky bunny, throwing himself into the crowd yelling “sing it!” at every opportunity. Where is the poise and mystery (not to mention dress sense) that once set them apart from the pack?
And some rock stars just shouldn’t open their mouths on-stage. “We are the Suede group,” Anderson announces, as if introducing a corporate brand. “It’s lovely to be here. Gosh, 20 years ago yesterday was our debut album.” Twenty years ago, Anderson would have had himself up before a firing squad just for uttering the words lovely and gosh.
There was a time when Suede seemed destined to become one of the great groups, playing epic, fanciful rock with a preening, narcissistic frontman on a mission of self-discovery. In the hands of young men, this was music of melodramatic, romantic possibility, taking the spirit of early 70s Bowie and charging it with post-punk energy, the heavy guitar flourish of grunge and space rock possibilities of psychedelia. Suede are often cited as the pioneers of Britpop, but they promised something much grander and stranger.
Well, 20 years on, the music retains all of that flavour but, performed by middle-aged men, it has shed its liquid possibility and solidified into a camp fetishisation of wasted youth. At 45, Anderson is still singing (and writing) songs of forlorn, romantic disillusion and alienation. It is music that no longer aspires to greatness but settles for crowd pleasing. You could say the same of a lot of groups, of course, most of whom have never managed a comeback remotely as effective. After this show, I am genuinely interested in what Suede do next. They have re-established their base in unlikely circumstances. Can they still shoot for the stars?
Re: suede live: Ally Pally 30-03-13
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/musi ... 2013_03_31
Suede at Alexandra Palace, N22
Marilyn Kingwill
4/5
Brett Anderson is impressively lean and energetic, gyrating and pogo-dancing through almost every number Marilyn Kingwill
March 31 2013
A decade away from the limelight can do wonders for your reputation. Just ask Blur, Pulp, Take That or David Bowie. And now Suede, reunited and rehabilitated, with a fine new comeback album currently lodged in the Top Ten. On Saturday these grand masters of hip-swivelling foppery played their biggest London show since 2003, almost exactly 20 years after they released their eponymously titled debut, accidentally inventing Britpop in the process.
Suede at Alexandra Palace, N22
Marilyn Kingwill
4/5
Brett Anderson is impressively lean and energetic, gyrating and pogo-dancing through almost every number Marilyn Kingwill
March 31 2013
A decade away from the limelight can do wonders for your reputation. Just ask Blur, Pulp, Take That or David Bowie. And now Suede, reunited and rehabilitated, with a fine new comeback album currently lodged in the Top Ten. On Saturday these grand masters of hip-swivelling foppery played their biggest London show since 2003, almost exactly 20 years after they released their eponymously titled debut, accidentally inventing Britpop in the process.
Re: suede live: Ally Pally 30-03-13
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/playlist/vie ... ce-London/
GIG REVIEW: SUEDE, ALEXANDRA PALACE, LONDON
Ending with his shirt undone, standing atop a speaker, Brett deserved to milk the applause
1st April 2013
By John Earls
OF the rash of recently reformed bands Suede have, surprisingly, been one of the most successful. Unlike some other reunion rockers, their Top 10 comeback album Bloodsports really is as good as anything from their heyday. Upbeat single It Starts And Ends With You was as much of a singalong as the old hits, while classy ballads such as For The Strangers were phone-saloft anthems.
It helped that singer Brett Anderson was, at 45, somehow as athletic as ever for two hours. He should bring out a workout DVD, as he didn’t stop running, pogoing and jumping into the front rows. It meant that early classics such as Animal Nitrate and The Drowners, all about teenage sex and men flirting, still sounded convincing sung by a married dad. The rest of the band matched Brett for passion, especially Richard Oakes, the previously troubled guitarist, who finally seems at ease with being a rock star.
Forget nostalgia, young bands can learn a lot about how to put rebellious messages for confused kids into powerful, catchy pop songs. Ending with his shirt undone, standing atop a speaker, Brett deserved to milk the applause. And unless The Stone Roses make the new album they’re capable of, Suede’s comeback is the best around.
GIG REVIEW: SUEDE, ALEXANDRA PALACE, LONDON
Ending with his shirt undone, standing atop a speaker, Brett deserved to milk the applause
1st April 2013
By John Earls
OF the rash of recently reformed bands Suede have, surprisingly, been one of the most successful. Unlike some other reunion rockers, their Top 10 comeback album Bloodsports really is as good as anything from their heyday. Upbeat single It Starts And Ends With You was as much of a singalong as the old hits, while classy ballads such as For The Strangers were phone-saloft anthems.
It helped that singer Brett Anderson was, at 45, somehow as athletic as ever for two hours. He should bring out a workout DVD, as he didn’t stop running, pogoing and jumping into the front rows. It meant that early classics such as Animal Nitrate and The Drowners, all about teenage sex and men flirting, still sounded convincing sung by a married dad. The rest of the band matched Brett for passion, especially Richard Oakes, the previously troubled guitarist, who finally seems at ease with being a rock star.
Forget nostalgia, young bands can learn a lot about how to put rebellious messages for confused kids into powerful, catchy pop songs. Ending with his shirt undone, standing atop a speaker, Brett deserved to milk the applause. And unless The Stone Roses make the new album they’re capable of, Suede’s comeback is the best around.
Re: suede live: Ally Pally 30-03-13
http://www.musicomh.com/reviews/live/su ... ace-london
Suede @ Alexandra Palace, London
30 March 2013
By Marc Burrows| 2 April 2013
If Suede are about anything, they’ve always been about grandeur. Their lyrics spoke of council estates and bedsit sex, but the music has always been for palaces. Suede make gigantic, graceful, histrionic, bombastic pop music; they always have. As a result few places feel more appropriate to house the next evolution of Suede as Alexandra Palace; grand, opulent, historic, and a bugger to get to. That’s Suede all over.
If Suede are about anything else it’s confidence. ‘Good Suede’ is swaggering Suede, the early spiteful fops of their debut, the ridiculous ambition of the Dog Man Star era, and the bolshy, everything-to-prove ferocity of Coming Up. They only faded when they became complacent. Anyone who saw them at Glastonbury a decade ago, touring an album none of them were that bothered about, will have seen what happens when it goes wrong. They were damp, forgettable. Suede should never be that.
Tonight, though, they are confident, they are grand, they are completely glorious. Confident enough to open the show with the first three tracks of a new album, an opening rendered with such ferocity that you wonder if they’re going to push through Bloodsports start to finish. Suede know their craft better than that though, and it’s another testimony to that confidence – confidence in their catalogue this time – that they follow the newies by putting Animal Nitrate and Metal Mickey, two of the biggest bankers in the set, back to back.
This is a Suede set that is not so much eager to please, as it is eager to show off. “Look,” they’re saying, “look how many amazing songs we have! Look how great our new songs are!” And they have. They are. We have the massive hits (Trash, Film Star), we have b-sides (Killing Of A Flashboy), the album gems (Sleeping Pills, Pantomime Horse), fan favourites (The Drowners, New Generation) and new songs that stand shoulder to shoulder with them.
Of the newies It Starts And Ends With You already feels like an old friend, while Brett Anderson hands the “La la la la la la’s” in Hit Me out to the crowd as enthusiastically as those in The Beautiful Ones. It says everything about the strength of the new material that For The Strangers can sit next to Everything Will Flow and hold its own.
The confidence is there in the men on stage as well. They know this is the best live form they’ve had since their glam punk early days. Matt Osman’s bum wiggles, Brett’s hips sway and microphone cartwheels, Richard pogos and hops. Neil raises an eyebrow once in a while, but that’s what Neil does. Confidence – everyman.
An encore of Saturday Night and New Generation seal the deal. Since the very start of their comeback, three years ago, we’ve known Suede were onto to something special. Tonight they’re as special as they’ve ever been. That confidence is back, and it grows, and grows and grows.
Suede @ Alexandra Palace, London
30 March 2013
By Marc Burrows| 2 April 2013
If Suede are about anything, they’ve always been about grandeur. Their lyrics spoke of council estates and bedsit sex, but the music has always been for palaces. Suede make gigantic, graceful, histrionic, bombastic pop music; they always have. As a result few places feel more appropriate to house the next evolution of Suede as Alexandra Palace; grand, opulent, historic, and a bugger to get to. That’s Suede all over.
If Suede are about anything else it’s confidence. ‘Good Suede’ is swaggering Suede, the early spiteful fops of their debut, the ridiculous ambition of the Dog Man Star era, and the bolshy, everything-to-prove ferocity of Coming Up. They only faded when they became complacent. Anyone who saw them at Glastonbury a decade ago, touring an album none of them were that bothered about, will have seen what happens when it goes wrong. They were damp, forgettable. Suede should never be that.
Tonight, though, they are confident, they are grand, they are completely glorious. Confident enough to open the show with the first three tracks of a new album, an opening rendered with such ferocity that you wonder if they’re going to push through Bloodsports start to finish. Suede know their craft better than that though, and it’s another testimony to that confidence – confidence in their catalogue this time – that they follow the newies by putting Animal Nitrate and Metal Mickey, two of the biggest bankers in the set, back to back.
This is a Suede set that is not so much eager to please, as it is eager to show off. “Look,” they’re saying, “look how many amazing songs we have! Look how great our new songs are!” And they have. They are. We have the massive hits (Trash, Film Star), we have b-sides (Killing Of A Flashboy), the album gems (Sleeping Pills, Pantomime Horse), fan favourites (The Drowners, New Generation) and new songs that stand shoulder to shoulder with them.
Of the newies It Starts And Ends With You already feels like an old friend, while Brett Anderson hands the “La la la la la la’s” in Hit Me out to the crowd as enthusiastically as those in The Beautiful Ones. It says everything about the strength of the new material that For The Strangers can sit next to Everything Will Flow and hold its own.
The confidence is there in the men on stage as well. They know this is the best live form they’ve had since their glam punk early days. Matt Osman’s bum wiggles, Brett’s hips sway and microphone cartwheels, Richard pogos and hops. Neil raises an eyebrow once in a while, but that’s what Neil does. Confidence – everyman.
An encore of Saturday Night and New Generation seal the deal. Since the very start of their comeback, three years ago, we’ve known Suede were onto to something special. Tonight they’re as special as they’ve ever been. That confidence is back, and it grows, and grows and grows.
Re: suede live: Ally Pally 30-03-13
http://thequietus.com/articles/11823-su ... dra-palace
Three Songs No Flash
To The Ends Of The City: Suede Live At Ally Pally
Luke Turner , April 2nd, 2013 07:07
Suede brave the echoing Victorian splendour of Alexandra Palace for yet another chapter in their triumphant return; Luke Turner explores why their arch sexuality still leaves marks on his neck.
Alexandra Palace is about as perfect a venue in which to see Suede in 2013 as you can get. Nobody knows quite why either are still here, ornate and grand and from a time past but still rather beautiful, their backs to the suburbs but looking out, boldly, across the whites and reds and oranges of the city of the city at night, and the misadventure that might lie underneath or behind each one.
On the enormous screen behind the band is the artwork to Bloodsports - person on top of man, pushing the right hand side of his head down, muscles blurring. Unlike on the LP cover, you can see the unadulterated details of the original photograph - the pine bedside table with something on it, the feet of the man at the head next to the bedknobs... It's an intimacy at odds with this notoriously cavernous, rattling space. How can Suede - even with an album as good as Bloodsports behind them - cope? They are, after all, the kind of band you'd quite happily watch night after night in a far smaller venue, and this can be a cruel place in which to play - countless are the groups who have come to grief underneath its high, echoing roof and unforgiving brickwork. Victorian architect Owen Jones never had fruity rock music in mind.
Yet, against the odds, Suede triumph tonight. The set is a cunning one designed to work here - more delicate moments from their back catalogue are eschewed in favour of the faster, louder, shaggier moments. Crucially too, at the first big venue live test, Bloodsports holds its own against the older material and, intriguingly, it's the songs from Coming Up and later albums that get a wilder response than anything from Suede or Dog Man Star.
They start with the writers block-breaker, 'Barriers' leading a trio of new bangers. 'It Starts And Ends With You', in particular, has no trouble filling the space, a classic in the Suede tradition of a serpentine guitar and Brett's vocals - he's already down on his knees in this one, shaking his head as presumably his meat reciprocates to the rear.
It's pertinent that much of the first period of the set is cut between early and most current material, courageous but spot on. So 'Sleeping Pills' runs into 'Sometimes I Feel I Float Away'- no real difference in quality... that track even features a bold moment of silence that keeps the room spellbound before it comes sweeping back in. 'Can't Get Enough', from the maligned Head Music, is one of the finest moments of the evening, bolstered by an exceedingly loud rhythm guitar chug from Neil Codling - who is indecently alluring in high necked black shirt or jumper (too far away to tell which, but hell - one swooned) and fitted black jacket.
Bang! 'Animal Nitrate', and a crowd of people in their 30s singing this anthem to first time, perhaps exploitative sex doesn't feel weird. It happened, we're all here now (I dug myself a garden path earlier today) and it made us what we are. It wasn't just Suede who lived Suede back in the day, everyone did - they were as much part of the gang as we were, and vice versa. Suede did, after all, paint portraits of suburban lives gone rather dry, and the tensions bubbling up underneath. Perhaps for some of these fans approaching middle age, many of these lyrics ring truer than they actually did back in the day. As if to prove the point, 20 years-and-a-day since the release of their debut album, Suede play 'Sleeping Pills', that stunning ode to cul-de-sac ennui. Fast forward to today, and of course Bloodsports details the excitement and breakdown of a relationship that isn't set in teenage years, but something in later years, still approached with a yearning, eroticism and drama of romantic imagination that doesn't really want to settle down to mere life. This isn't about nostalgia at all, but finding glamour, decadence and sex in the here and now.
That said, there's a sizeable crowd under 30 here, most of whom seem to be women - Suede's stated aim of being a "girls' band" who don't appeal to #LADS holding true.
Thank heavens for that. In 'Metal Mickey' we've Brett's first shirtlift, by 'We Are The Pigs', it's half undone, the portrait in Anderson's attic groaning and greying a little as the man yelps and struts and pouts onstage. By 'Hit Me' all we can see is the rest of the band as Brett marauds in front of the crowd. Suede are still a fantastically libidinous group - just over there a man, shirt undone a la Anderson gyrates with a blond lady, who in turn is kissing her friend. What other band of Suede's vintage - or any since - would have a 30-foot-wide picture of a man's bare arse projected on the screen behind them? Imagine if you switched the DVD at the Stone Roses at Heaton Park! Or the Oasis reunion 2016... Confusion, riot and calamity would surely ensue!
Like everything Suede have done over the past few years, tonight is a slow build, as if the band can't quite tell whether or not they're going to be able to pull it off, accidentally stumble on the magic, realise everyone is on with it, then really get their teeth into proceedings, and start to rip. By the end, the whole of Alexandra Palace has been won over, people dance, arms in the air, and sing themselves hoarse. "What are we?" Brett asks, leaping off a monitor, button integrity down to two. "So young", the thousands sing back with defiant conviction. Suede - still not so much a band as a state of mind.
Three Songs No Flash
To The Ends Of The City: Suede Live At Ally Pally
Luke Turner , April 2nd, 2013 07:07
Suede brave the echoing Victorian splendour of Alexandra Palace for yet another chapter in their triumphant return; Luke Turner explores why their arch sexuality still leaves marks on his neck.
Alexandra Palace is about as perfect a venue in which to see Suede in 2013 as you can get. Nobody knows quite why either are still here, ornate and grand and from a time past but still rather beautiful, their backs to the suburbs but looking out, boldly, across the whites and reds and oranges of the city of the city at night, and the misadventure that might lie underneath or behind each one.
On the enormous screen behind the band is the artwork to Bloodsports - person on top of man, pushing the right hand side of his head down, muscles blurring. Unlike on the LP cover, you can see the unadulterated details of the original photograph - the pine bedside table with something on it, the feet of the man at the head next to the bedknobs... It's an intimacy at odds with this notoriously cavernous, rattling space. How can Suede - even with an album as good as Bloodsports behind them - cope? They are, after all, the kind of band you'd quite happily watch night after night in a far smaller venue, and this can be a cruel place in which to play - countless are the groups who have come to grief underneath its high, echoing roof and unforgiving brickwork. Victorian architect Owen Jones never had fruity rock music in mind.
Yet, against the odds, Suede triumph tonight. The set is a cunning one designed to work here - more delicate moments from their back catalogue are eschewed in favour of the faster, louder, shaggier moments. Crucially too, at the first big venue live test, Bloodsports holds its own against the older material and, intriguingly, it's the songs from Coming Up and later albums that get a wilder response than anything from Suede or Dog Man Star.
They start with the writers block-breaker, 'Barriers' leading a trio of new bangers. 'It Starts And Ends With You', in particular, has no trouble filling the space, a classic in the Suede tradition of a serpentine guitar and Brett's vocals - he's already down on his knees in this one, shaking his head as presumably his meat reciprocates to the rear.
It's pertinent that much of the first period of the set is cut between early and most current material, courageous but spot on. So 'Sleeping Pills' runs into 'Sometimes I Feel I Float Away'- no real difference in quality... that track even features a bold moment of silence that keeps the room spellbound before it comes sweeping back in. 'Can't Get Enough', from the maligned Head Music, is one of the finest moments of the evening, bolstered by an exceedingly loud rhythm guitar chug from Neil Codling - who is indecently alluring in high necked black shirt or jumper (too far away to tell which, but hell - one swooned) and fitted black jacket.
Bang! 'Animal Nitrate', and a crowd of people in their 30s singing this anthem to first time, perhaps exploitative sex doesn't feel weird. It happened, we're all here now (I dug myself a garden path earlier today) and it made us what we are. It wasn't just Suede who lived Suede back in the day, everyone did - they were as much part of the gang as we were, and vice versa. Suede did, after all, paint portraits of suburban lives gone rather dry, and the tensions bubbling up underneath. Perhaps for some of these fans approaching middle age, many of these lyrics ring truer than they actually did back in the day. As if to prove the point, 20 years-and-a-day since the release of their debut album, Suede play 'Sleeping Pills', that stunning ode to cul-de-sac ennui. Fast forward to today, and of course Bloodsports details the excitement and breakdown of a relationship that isn't set in teenage years, but something in later years, still approached with a yearning, eroticism and drama of romantic imagination that doesn't really want to settle down to mere life. This isn't about nostalgia at all, but finding glamour, decadence and sex in the here and now.
That said, there's a sizeable crowd under 30 here, most of whom seem to be women - Suede's stated aim of being a "girls' band" who don't appeal to #LADS holding true.
Thank heavens for that. In 'Metal Mickey' we've Brett's first shirtlift, by 'We Are The Pigs', it's half undone, the portrait in Anderson's attic groaning and greying a little as the man yelps and struts and pouts onstage. By 'Hit Me' all we can see is the rest of the band as Brett marauds in front of the crowd. Suede are still a fantastically libidinous group - just over there a man, shirt undone a la Anderson gyrates with a blond lady, who in turn is kissing her friend. What other band of Suede's vintage - or any since - would have a 30-foot-wide picture of a man's bare arse projected on the screen behind them? Imagine if you switched the DVD at the Stone Roses at Heaton Park! Or the Oasis reunion 2016... Confusion, riot and calamity would surely ensue!
Like everything Suede have done over the past few years, tonight is a slow build, as if the band can't quite tell whether or not they're going to be able to pull it off, accidentally stumble on the magic, realise everyone is on with it, then really get their teeth into proceedings, and start to rip. By the end, the whole of Alexandra Palace has been won over, people dance, arms in the air, and sing themselves hoarse. "What are we?" Brett asks, leaping off a monitor, button integrity down to two. "So young", the thousands sing back with defiant conviction. Suede - still not so much a band as a state of mind.
Re: suede live: Ally Pally 30-03-13
http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/musi ... 56700.html
Suede, Alexandra Palace - music review: Brett Anderson became the focal point with an almost absurdly exuberant performance
Andre Paine
02 April 2013
Critic Rating 4/5
Like David Bowie, Suede have perfected the art of the dignified comeback after a decade away. Bloodsports, a top 10 album last month, refines their decadent mid-Nineties pop with conspicuous success: even though this show started with three new songs, fans sang along lustily to choruses that already felt familiar.
From the belligerent opener Barriers, Brett Anderson became the focal point with an almost absurdly exuberant performance.
One moment he was foppishly shaking his hips or twirling a microphone above his head, the next he was snarling his lyrics and leaning into the front row like an irate dog straining at the leash.
“Sing it!” Anderson demanded as Neil Codling and Richard Oakes cranked up the guitars on Animal Nitrate, still queasily thrilling almost exactly 20 years to the day since the release of Suede’s debut album. Metal Mickey’s glam-rock racket was similarly audacious, while Sleeping Pills allowed Anderson a respite from leaping around to exercise his dissonant croon.
Self-belief sometimes got the better of him as he dusted off minor singles such as Everything Will Flow or disappeared into the crowd repeatedly — not ideal for an audience in a capacious venue without a big screen.
At least his demonic stage persona meant Anderson — now 45 and married with children — never doubted his ability to get away with singing So Young or youthful outsider anthem Trash. Suede’s middle-aged fans were equally unembarrassed and the rousing finale of New Generation felt far more vital than mere nostalgia.
Suede, Alexandra Palace - music review: Brett Anderson became the focal point with an almost absurdly exuberant performance
Andre Paine
02 April 2013
Critic Rating 4/5
Like David Bowie, Suede have perfected the art of the dignified comeback after a decade away. Bloodsports, a top 10 album last month, refines their decadent mid-Nineties pop with conspicuous success: even though this show started with three new songs, fans sang along lustily to choruses that already felt familiar.
From the belligerent opener Barriers, Brett Anderson became the focal point with an almost absurdly exuberant performance.
One moment he was foppishly shaking his hips or twirling a microphone above his head, the next he was snarling his lyrics and leaning into the front row like an irate dog straining at the leash.
“Sing it!” Anderson demanded as Neil Codling and Richard Oakes cranked up the guitars on Animal Nitrate, still queasily thrilling almost exactly 20 years to the day since the release of Suede’s debut album. Metal Mickey’s glam-rock racket was similarly audacious, while Sleeping Pills allowed Anderson a respite from leaping around to exercise his dissonant croon.
Self-belief sometimes got the better of him as he dusted off minor singles such as Everything Will Flow or disappeared into the crowd repeatedly — not ideal for an audience in a capacious venue without a big screen.
At least his demonic stage persona meant Anderson — now 45 and married with children — never doubted his ability to get away with singing So Young or youthful outsider anthem Trash. Suede’s middle-aged fans were equally unembarrassed and the rousing finale of New Generation felt far more vital than mere nostalgia.