SUEDE // O2 ACADEMY, GLASGOW

SUEDE LIVE AT GLASGOW’S O2 ACADEMY

★★★★★ (5/5)

What can you say about Suede live which isn’t just repeating what’s been written many times before? Were they effortlessly cool? Did they deliver a blistering performance? Is Brett Anderson one of the great front men with huge stage presence? Do they all still look far too good for the age? Do they still play some of the best music written in the UK in the last 30 years? The answer to all of these is emphatically yes! It’s almost annoying that, after all this time, they still do it much better than most, it’s always been one of the great mysteries of music to me that Suede weren’t the biggest band in the world.

First things first, the support act, Aircooled, took to the stage about 8pm. Not a band I’d seen or heard before so I went in with an open mind. I always love discovering interesting new acts in support slots, Aircooled didn’t disappoint. There were not your standard support act, most of them have been in other bands like Elastica and the Wedding Present before but, and this is what made them stand out, it wasn’t just a series of 3-4 minutes songs that could have been played by any number of bands. They played long, mostly instrumental, songs which had a serious groove to them. I found myself enjoying it much more than I expected to. As a band they have plenty of stage presence, I’m intrigued and will now be going away to listen to their new album (out now as they may have reminded us more than once) to see if it lives up to their live show.

About 9pm the main act arrived, they strode out on to the stage, Brett last, entering as as the consummate entertainer coming to blow us away. The first song threatened to do just that but Brett wasn’t satisfied, he felt he wasn’t getting enough back from the crowd, that they weren’t warming up as quickly as they would like.

So a couple of songs in he decided to wade into the crowd and really whip them up, wandering amongst them he kept signing effortlessly while interacting and entertaining in equal measure. It’s a wonderful sight watching a crowd keep the microphone cable aloft as the lead singer wanders around owning the experience and making everyone feel special. He never quite made it back into the crowd again during the night, obviously taking the view his job was done (it was), but he did come off the stage regularly to interact with the enraptured audience.

The crowd were now 100% up for it, so why not thrown animal nitrate at them? When you have these kind of arrows in your quiver there is no stopping you, it was as showstopping as ever but they weren’t on their own. There was a barrage of quality songs throughout.

One question I did wonder to myself before I went was how the new songs from autofriction would fit in, would they be strong enough up against the classics, its an album I bought on vinyl when it first came out, thoroughly enjoyed and I was looking forward to hearing them play live. The reality is they more than held their own, there was not a weak song in the show. They fitted in seamlessly, not one of them sounded out of place. If you haven’t got the album but like Suede I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

The two highlights for me, after animal nitrate obviously as it’s one of my favourite songs ever, were Brett going all acoustic, just him, a stool, his guitar, and his own modest description of his guitar playing and the sole encore track, the beautiful ones, we all left after that, having happily shaken our meat to the beat…

All in all, outstanding, Suede are still an brilliant live act, they are still on tour, if you can somehow get hold of a ticket it’s more than worth it, bands this good live don’t come around very often and they are still, annoyingly, the epitome of cool!