and so at last i get to tick off one of those unusual, perhaps peculiarly specific things in life that i would wish to do. quite a few of these have been doing stuff like drinking lime in coconut purely as Nilsson suggested it in a song, true, and a lot have been related to A Bit Of Fry & Laurie sketches, look you see. but now i get to write with the subject (or title) of Live At Leeds without it being just a reference to the classic or if you like seminal album by The Who.
my relatively recently rediscovered love of going to gigs is mostly due to being fortunate enough to be living close to where they are and (kind of) having the coins of money enabling me to get a ticket or two. it's not too often i travel that far for them, unless it's particularly special, like for instance Holly Johnson in that there London (innit) last year (2023). but the chance to see both Manic Street Preachers and Suede do a joint tour meant that oh yes, i was travelling. and, in the first instance, travelling to Leeds.
for what reason, or if you like why, is it that these two immensely excellent bands have put on a joint tour? mostly, i suspect, fan "demand" if not pressure. they are good mates, and i have a vague memory of them touring together (reasonably) early in their careers. recently, and presumably to make it economically viable, they have done joint tours of America and Japan, allowing the fans in those nations the rare chance of seeing them. as they were very successful tours i guess they responded to the interest from UK based fans in it with a "well why don't we do it at home too" approach. very, very glad that they did so.
no i most certainly did not let the fact that i had seen both the Manics and Suede fairly recently stop me from going again. and again, but that is for another post. the lure and appeal of seeing two bands who have played a massive part in the soundtrack of my life in one go was not going to be denied. and it was wise to have no such denial, as the night in Millennium Square in Leeds was phenomenal.
it remains so that my current phone what has a camera welded to it, the oddly celebrated Samsung A14 or what have you, is not really any good for pictures or videos from gigs. quite a shame, but there you go. still, for the curiosity factor i thought the above video might be of passing interest. a chance stroll by the venue allowed us to catch the Manics doing what i believe is called a "sound check". not sure if you can make it out, but that's a bit of Kevin Carter they were playing to make sure speakers and what have you were all working proper. obligatory apologies for the poor quality.
being a joint tour is all well and good, but there has to be an "order" to it. as in one of the band has to be the opening one and the other the closing one. the latter, or last, would generally be considered the headliner, which is the "more prestigious", no matter how good friends they may all be. for the tour they've come up with a (relatively) straightforward solution by which they simply alternate which way around they play. my feeling was that Manics building up to Suede made more sense, which was mostly why Leeds got selected over Manchester (in the area) for tickets bought.
let it be noted that i considered the Manics to be on top form. i've seen some mumblings across the web of them being "below par" and what have you. this is the life of Manics fans, though. a core exists which says they have been downhill since their first album, or since Richey went missing, or since some other landmark. James was brilliant on both vocals and guitar, but yes, Nicky Wire did appear to be rather restrained (by Nicky Wire standards). he did explain that he had been suffering with the "dreaded lurgy", by which i think he meant that plague thing from a few years ago. oh. as for drums, well, Sean Moore does as Sean Moore does. except now with a massive beard.
my experience of the Manics as a live event had followed a set path. up to now i had always seen them have Speed Of Life off of Bowie as an intro, Motorcycle Emptiness as the opening song and A Design For Life as the last song. in this instance the intro was a very excellent 80s feel remix of 1985 which is likely on the Lifeblood box set that i haven't opened up yet. sorry, been busy. after that the first song was, for a change, You Love Us, and then they closed with If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next. should you wish for some quite bad footage of a bit of the latter song there, well, then your wish is right below this.
whilst it was excellent to see the Manics once more and, at least as far as i was concerned they were on top form, something felt somewhat off. it was a delight to take a good friend who had not seen them before, but perhaps like the last instance it all feels "wrong" to be seeing them at all without my now former (considerably) better half being there. but you cannot fight the future.
putting aside any sort of sentimental hygiene concerns, it could be, to misquote a famous comedy line, they were playing all the right songs, just not necessarily in the right order. i am trying to think of the right words here, not sure this is it but it keeps coming to mind, so to write it (and waste no more of your time) the set felt weirdly directionless. the beauty of the Manics, that the link, or if you will bond, between fan and band is so strong, is sometimes a curse. if there's a standard 8 - 10 songs that they are guaranteed to play, it's the ones around them that are a battlefield of what they wish to play, what they think the fans may want to hear and what the fans actually wish to hear. reactions to these choices are always one of two; either "oh my f*****g god they are playing it!" or "what the f*** are they playing this for?". no, nothing in between.
ultimately i shall (all day every day) take what after the fact feels like a disjointed, partially confusing Manics set because at the time, in the moment, it all makes sense. a new album is, apparently, not that far off. i suspect they might rather benefit from a slight break, to recharge and refresh. but yes, any new album and subsequent tour will see me part with money.
enter Suede, then. just a half an hour or so break between the bands, and it was quite class to see the roadies at work, changing one set to another with immense (and impressive) precision. for the fans of such information indeed, just as last year they started with Turn Off Your Brain And Yell and closed with a singalong-heavy rendition of The Beautiful Ones. rather similar set to last year, only with a few songs trimmed to fit in with the 75 minute slot each band had, and to include an absolutely mind-blowingly brilliant new song called Antidepressants. they too have a new album on the way.
mostly (or for the most part) this is going to be me waffling on with admiration, worship, lust, jealous and praise focused entirely on the wonderful Brett Anderson. but, or so, before such, shout out to the rest of the band. in particular Mat Osman who(m) to me and the crowd looked like he was absolutely stoned out of his bracket but swaggered and swayed with the bass like he was having the best sex ever in all of recorded history. go for it mate, never stop.
some have questioned the wisdom of the Manics agreeing to a joint tour with Suede, at least in regards of doing so in the UK. true, a number of Manic fans there simply cannot stand Suede and visibly left as soon as the band they wanted to see finished. for many of us, though, it always appeared fairly obvious that no matter what the Manics did, no matter how good they were, they were destined to be overshadowed by virtue of what an extraordinary frontman Brett is. he has that gift where he has the audience in the palm of his hand from start to end, a rare gift that one would normally assume only someone like Freddie Mercury or Bono had. yes, those that dislike Suede will disagree with me, but different views make the world more interesting.
yes, those what are in the camp which has always (and will always) refer to Suede as "effete southern w@nkers" will disagree. fair enough. for me it's just an exhilarating joy to watch someone take to the stage with such bold confidence of belief in what they are doing, knowing that what they are doing is what the audience craves. it's like he draws beyond human strength and energy from those in the crowd and gives it all back, leaving all that he has on the stage. and let me once again mention the outstanding, excellent swagger of Mat Osman and his sex bass.
that my phone with a camera welded to it is only good for poor quality footage was the perfect excuse i needed not to film too much or take to many pictures. but, for fun, there you go, a snippet of the introduction to The Beautiful Ones. from what i could tell a good many people which much more better equipment (as it were) seemed intent on filming it all. if you are interested in footage off of this gig then i dare say loads of it is on the internet somewhere.
just as the Manics have a standard list of songs which shall always feature, so too this is true of Suede. i would suggest there are four (4) which shall always be played - Animal Nitrate, Trash, Metal Mickey and The Beautiful Ones. hang on, i think they unexpectedly dropped Metal Mickey on one gig, but saw the error in that and put it back in. yes, these got played, and i suppose i went absolutely mental as they played them. quite like i did when they did She Still Leads Me On, So Young, The Drowners and, well, nearly all of them.
nice to hear Brett declare that he believed Autofiction was now their best album, with him adding that this meant Dog Man Star, long his most treasured work, was second best. oddly enough i do have it playing as i write this, and yes it remains a great album. my choice would probably be either Coming Up or Dog Man Star as their greatest, but still. up to now they've only really done one poor record, and let's not mention that one no more.
were it so that for some reason i "had" to choose which of them to see again based on performances on the night then it would be Suede. that said, and as mentioned before, of course should chance permit i will be off to see them on their own as and when they next tour. but if all goes well there might just be a post soon that's not all that different from this one.
one regrettable thought about this amazing night is that it's now perfectly clear exactly just how much i and everyone else there got f****d over at that recent James gig. for context or what have you the ticket price for Manics and Suede was more or less what it was for James alone. unlike James, both the bands actually played and acted like they were happy to be there and had no particular quarrel with playing the songs fans wished to hear. still, Girl At The End Of The World remains an incredible record.
right then, or phew. i don't think i fawned too much over Brett, but then such things are the kind of thing that you might be here to read about. onwards to the next...........
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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