[ATTENDED: November 19, 2022] Suede
When this tour was announced I practically screamed with delight. It was listed as a dual headlining show with the bands switching who would play first. It just happened that we had Suede as the second band and I feel that, given how exciting Suede was, we saw them in the right order.
The first Suede album (or The London Suede, if you must) is one of my favorite albums of all time. It’s glammy and trashy and catchy and wonderful. Brett Anderson’s voice is unique and magnificent and Bernard Butler’s guitar work was like nothing else at the time. When Butler left during the recording of their next album, it seemed like curtains for the band, but young guitarist Richard Oates stepped in and is a force unto himself. I still think of him as the new guy, even though he’s been in the band for over twenty years.
Suede broke up in 2003 and I guess I lost touch with them. But they reunited in 2010 and have been putting out new albums ever since. Although I wasn’t really aware of these records–they really fell off my radar. I had never seen Suede live (and they haven’t toured the States in something like twenty-five years). I looked at their European shows and saw that they were playing a lot of songs from the new album. But I hoped that they would throw a bone for the U.S. fans and play some oldies too.
The band came out and set up their first song, a lengthy instrumental opening. And then Brett Anderson slowly marched out. He shuffled and danced and was surprisingly goofy. I evidently didn’t know anything about Suede’s live show, because I wasn’t expecting anything like the way Anderson bounced around, crawled on the floor, and, yes, climbed into the audience and sang with us. It was awesome. (more…)
