suede

howdy pop pickers

and so another gig this month to write of. which, if you are counting, makes two (2). should such be of interest to you the first one in notes and observation form can be found by clicking here, look you see. but, we are here with this one now. yes, as the title of the post gives every (reasonable) indication of being, indeed i did, or have, at last, seen suede in concert. 

now this was something special. it has taken me, give or take, 30 (thirty) years to finally get to see the band live. comparable, i suppose, to the 40 (!) years it took me to see Adam Ant, and the somewhere north of 20 to see The Stone Roses. and then others, but no i am not putting in links, but feel free to browse my blog and see the details. it's not hidden. 

i was supposed to see suede, for the first time, about two years ago. that was one i was very much looking forward to, since they were playing my favourite album, Coming Up, in full. had tickets and everything, but the (quite) short version is that absolutely everything which could have gone wrong went quite f****d and i didn't end up seeing them. oh. well, another chance came up, and was taken. 

yes, indeed, if you like really, really bad quality pictures of gigs, this post is almost certainly going to be your thing. fans of exceptionally poor video are in for a treat, as indeed there will be a few briefly recorded moments for you to stare at and wonder what was the point of me trying to film. perhaps i am in need of a fancy new phone with a better camera welded to it. but then, for the most part i wished to watch the show, thanks. 

ostensibly, or in real terms, this gig was part of the tour suede gone done to promote their most recent of albums, AUTOFICTION, which i have very frequently had on the stereo since it came out. as you would expect, and to be entirely fair, quite a chunk of the set was songs from this record. the set opened, perhaps with a sense of subversion, with the album closer, Turn Off Your Brain And Yell. which let the band play for a couple of minutes as an intro before Brett came on stage. so to speak. 

to get some of the poor quality video out of the way from you, here you go then. a number off of the new album, and i believe a "lead single" in the current understanding of the term, all in the form of some of 15 Again. i would say that this is a particular highlight, or if you will an outstanding track, off of AUTOFICTION, but that's moot since the whole thing is superb. 

let go of any ideas (hopes, really) that the video quality shall get any better as this post goes on, or if you will progresses. actually, oddly, this isn't out of character for suede. certain special editions of their albums come with a video (dvd), and that for the most part features bootlegged footage from gigs. 

before this turns into an inevitable (and immensely predictable) Brett Anderson love in, a word of praise for the band, please. and here i defer to my good friend what i went to the gig with. he described the performance as it being "the band owned the stage". if you have been to some great gigs and (hopefully not too many) less great gigs i suspect you will know what is meant by this. so no, i shall decline to clarify, at least too much. of the many things that make a band become rock legends, gods or huge is delivering performances like this. for some in the audience (and i am not sure if i count, it was that good) it shall be the greatest rock band performance they will witness; to the band it's "just" what they do, it's the only way they know how to do it. 

quite an odd concept exists that this, the above, is "remarkable" for the band, considering the number of line up changes. a strange myth. sure, true, they did lose the lead guitarist who was (rightly) hailed as one of the greats of his generation and elected to replace him with a 17 year old who sent a tape in to the fan club, and certainly wasn't old enough to be (legally) doing the splendid things what the band sung of on their first album. many laughed and said it was now Suede Tap, yet the first full album with that line up was Coming Up, one of the greatest albums of all time. 

fair enough, it is true that only bassist Mat Osman (indeed that one's brother) is there from the days before record contracts and fame, along with Brett Anderson. and now no more shall i shy away from the very deliberate, obvious and overt star of the show. 

my god, my creator, my science, my whatever it is that put us in the form of a life that can act, think and operate the way we do, be blessed for conjuring up a scenario in which i existed in the same space or place as Brett Anderson. whatever hopes i held of it being quite class to see him live were surpassed in minutes, or any limited form or type of measurement. if ever a man, a singer, a person or whatever belonged on a stage, soaking up the adulation and love they inspire, it's him. he is frankly incredible. i am a fifty year old music junkie, and have been in the audience to see icons such as Bowie, Ian Brown, Morrissey, Nick Cave, Bono and so on. Axl, even, when he was actually on stage for the gig. not sure i have ever, ever, ever experienced what i did with Brett Anderson. 

just a quick pause to my outright love of Brett Anderson to, well, show off what caused the love in the first instance. my friend summed it up nicely when he described me as "completely losing my sh!t" in a way he had never seen before or thought possible when the band did a double whammy of Animal Nitrate and then Trash. if that first of those two were them flirting their eyes at me and attracting my attention (which worked) then the second was the creation of a bond far, far stronger than commitment, it formed a never ending love, a relationship that you can test all you like but shall never break. so, then, a brief bit of Animal Nitrate. 

indeed just twenty seconds or so. sure, i wished to record it, to share with some and of course on here, but mostly i wanted to be in the zone (see previous paragraph) and enjoy the moment. when the band were just starting, and getting huge press (back when we had a music press), i fondly recall someone sending a letter to NME complaining about all the fuss, and how that "one song" they did, which they called Animal Nighttrain, wasn't that good. well, they were wrong. 

so, Brett. by about three or four songs in he was a hot, sticky, sweaty mess, and not from any lack of fitness. rather a determination to leave as much of his (metaphorical and actual) heart and soul on the stage and in the hearts and soul of the audience. no stopping for chats or idle questions of "how are you", just the occasional shout, or complaint, no matter how "mental" we went or how loud we were, that he could neither f*****g hear us or f*****g see us getting into it. energy created by him, in us, fed back to him and powered him on, up, higher, louder, more passionate, more incredible. 

from the early days there indeed was a huge buzz about the band before anyone had heard them. and an actual, proper word of mouth buzz, not manufactured. it was weird. the more (music) press coverage got, the more their entourage, or disciples, or if you will fans, just grew. some got touched by the music, what was going on, and became devout. whereas this didn't quite happen for me, when i did latch on i could understand why. yes, this leads to a (kind of) point, but hold on. 

perhaps you suspect that the above image is of three (3) forms of contraceptive (at the risk of getting yet another warning, rubber johnnies) branded with the art of suede's frequently mentioned (in this post) record Coming Up. indeed they are. knowing the answer i asked if, at the merchandise stall, they had any t-shirts my size. alas, no, but the lady offered these (for sale) instead. before i could ask about size she offered the opinion that they would be perfect for me, as they were extra small. oh. 

the bit which took me by surprise (beyond the above) was just how embryonic, if you will symbiotic the relationship between Brett and fans actually is. let us not forget this man is a huge, huge star. quite a big deal. and yet frequently, and patently not staged, Brett simply jumped into the crowd, surrounded by the fans, and sang away. sure, there were gasps (from people like me not expecting it) and a lot of touching. but not pawing, clawing or molesting. i mean, it was beautiful, man. no i didn't try to touch him for fear of losing all control. other music stars, of an "importance scale" higher or lower depending on your perspective, true, but not like this. as with so much of suede, it escapes reason, it defies definition, it just comes into being and feels like it has always been so. 

undoubtedly i was clumsy in my review, which i am not going to go and read, but there's that one track residing on AUTOFICTION, the magnificent What Am I Without You. he means this that i describe above, i believe. and no it's not a "i am nothing without the fans" luvvie type statement. going further back (rather than forward), now that i think, and Barriers, which is the perfect song of the bond existing between fan and band. the journey for suede, and let us not forget a ten year absence, has reached the point where all accept what it is, which was a gig like this. and it's beautiful. 

an extended clip (by the standards of others here) for you of Trash, then. i filmed a bit more for another good friend who wasn't there, but had called me to declare this song as being one of the greatest pop records of all time. which it is. happy to spend some more time recording this one, for the sentiment shall no longer ever be true for me in the form of a relationship. once it was, but that's all gone now, and yet the song remains just as beautiful as ever. 

other highlights from the set? indeed i did again do that thing where i apparently "lost my sh!t" when they also cranked out Metal Mickey. not sure, but i suspect i would have been far too busy singing, shouting, screaming "she sells heart, she sells meat, oh, dad, she's driving me mad" all the way on that one. a rather new, brilliant reading of The Asphalt World from dog man star was extraordinary. keeping The Beautiful Ones in the back pocket for an encore is also a lovely trick to be able to play. 

effectively, in reality or whatever you may wish to say of such, there's no such thing as a bad moment at all in the entire gig. no down time. well, except for the bit where two people chatting got on Brett's nerves (or t!ts) a bit and he said they had twenty seconds to finish the conversation or they were out. for perfect sets and perfect gigs, the only ones i have seen i could compare this to are Frankie, Stone Roses and Nick Cave. not bad company to be in.  

would i go and see suede again? part of me thinks to answer this no, let this moment be a perfection remaining unblemished, a treasured memory for however long i have left. but here in the real world, i suspect the moment tickets for any other tour go on sale i shall be buying. if i can. 

and that's that for now. momentarily, or as things stand no, no other gigs planned. well, not quite true. there are one or two ahead that i am not sure of, but we shall see. i am quite confident, though, that no matter how good any future gigs may be, i have seen the best one i shall see all year, and possibly ever see again. that is a challenge which would be awesome to see defeated. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!