Post by suedehead on Oct 23, 2013 1:06:02 GMT 1
Entering the Southampton Guildhall as support band Teleman were playing I thought I’d gone into a time warp. The keyboard player looked like a young Martin Fry (ABC) with a similarly young David Baddiel on bass. The drummer could have been the brother of AbFab Saffy’s geeky friend. The fact that their sound reminded me of Geneva just added to the sense of time travel. I missed the start of their set but what I heard was pretty good. And so to the main event...
The audience was a good mix of people old enough to be long-standing Suede fans like myself and others who wouldn’t even have been born when I first saw them at this venue in December 1994. Their set list tonight was rather unexpected. They started by playing their latest album Bloodsports in full. It is a sign of the confidence they have in their new material that they could devote so much of the night to it rather than filling the set with crowd-pleasing old stuff. I was lucky enough to be very near the front so I could see how chuffed Brett Anderson was with the reception it got, particularly as it only became apparent what they were doing after a few songs. He didn’t announce that they were playing the album in full until a couple songs from the end. It had become pretty obvious by then with not a single shout of “Play some old ones” to be heard. Having been to each of the three nights at the Brixton Academy a couple years ago when they played each of the first three albums in full, I have now seen them play four of their six studio albums in their entirety.
After a few minutes off stage they returned for another surprise. They started right back at the beginning with their first proper single The Drowners and proceeded to play all the singles from the first three albums in order. Yes, they even included Stay Together (not on an album but fitting in chronologically), albeit the short version. That song seemed to be the only one that some of the younger people in the audience did not recognise.
Some 21 1/2 years and about 45 gigs after I first saw them and fell in love with the band Suede continue to put on a fantastic show. Obviously I didn’t need it but, just in case I did, they delivered a reminder of why they are the best band ever in this, or any other, universe.
The audience was a good mix of people old enough to be long-standing Suede fans like myself and others who wouldn’t even have been born when I first saw them at this venue in December 1994. Their set list tonight was rather unexpected. They started by playing their latest album Bloodsports in full. It is a sign of the confidence they have in their new material that they could devote so much of the night to it rather than filling the set with crowd-pleasing old stuff. I was lucky enough to be very near the front so I could see how chuffed Brett Anderson was with the reception it got, particularly as it only became apparent what they were doing after a few songs. He didn’t announce that they were playing the album in full until a couple songs from the end. It had become pretty obvious by then with not a single shout of “Play some old ones” to be heard. Having been to each of the three nights at the Brixton Academy a couple years ago when they played each of the first three albums in full, I have now seen them play four of their six studio albums in their entirety.
After a few minutes off stage they returned for another surprise. They started right back at the beginning with their first proper single The Drowners and proceeded to play all the singles from the first three albums in order. Yes, they even included Stay Together (not on an album but fitting in chronologically), albeit the short version. That song seemed to be the only one that some of the younger people in the audience did not recognise.
Some 21 1/2 years and about 45 gigs after I first saw them and fell in love with the band Suede continue to put on a fantastic show. Obviously I didn’t need it but, just in case I did, they delivered a reminder of why they are the best band ever in this, or any other, universe.
