Suede : Manchester Deaf Institute : Live Review

Suede

Manchester Deaf Institute

Sept 2022

Live Review

Here they come with their air of flash and sharp bohemian lines and that cordite whiff for danger. It’s flash man and his droogs AKA Crushed Kid AKA Suede who are back in town for yet another comeback from the band who have eternally put the word ‘come’ into comeback over and over again.

Tonight’s secret show billed as Crushed Kid (it’s written on their bass drum in Jaffa tape!) Who are a “brand sparkling new post-punk band is in the cramped and crammed Deaf Institute. It’s a glorious swaggering triumph as Suede run through their about to be released new Autofiction album whilst celebrating their, gasp, 30 years since their debut. 

The new album is a post-plague rush. The sound of the joy of a band locked in a room kicking out the jams and falling in love with the simple thrills of high decibel swagger. It’s a showing off of their new muscularity and the album like the gig itself is a noisy celebration of the band’s deadly nightshade mixture of gothic drama and dramatic glamorama. 

Their punk roots poke through now and then with their love of a terrace anthem chorus and pulverising guitars and taut succinct songs. 

Age has certainly not withered the band and Brett Anderson who is a whirling dervish of wiry intensity. His lithe and sexy sassiness is Oscar Wilde portrait in the attic stuff and  seems to have been vamped to the max, and his voice is an as astonishing thing as it is unleashed across the songs of melancholy and euphoria full of love and lust and emotional skree.  Only the Manics from this long-lost era seem to retain this creative quest and balancing act between louche camp and steroid riffola. 

There are big anthems with Richard Oakes arpeggios ringing across the room and the rhythm section creating its eternal thumping power whilst drummer Simon Gilbert’s cousin – the mysterious Neil Codling is as poker-faced as ever peering at the audience from his textured long locks. He looks like a cross between Brian Eno and when he sits down to play the keys on two lush ballads like the imperious genius of Ron Mael.

The romp through Autofiction bodes well for the band who put the word ‘back’ into comeback and is a return to their punkier roots. It’s the kind of wall of sound racket that drummer Simon Gilbert enjoyed as teenage Crass fan or Brett ‘big A little A’  Anderson would immerse himself in as a pre-teen punk in the concrete new towns near London. 

Of course it’s much more nuanced than the rudimentary rush of punk. Those decades have seen British music shapeshift into lots of new horizons and many of those shapes were coaxed by Suede themselves who whilst hinting at their own roots in the Mick Ronson swag of prime time Bowie or of his Gothic acolytes like Bauhaus or the poetic chiming indie of The Smiths somehow created their own version that became a template for another generation. Their central role in the soap opera of early Britpop cemented their space in the pop firmament but they have always been on their own trajectory. 

Their glam punk roots sneak through in songs like the anthemic new single, 15 Again, the wam bam thank U glam of That Boy on the Stage or the swooning tidal wave of It’s Always the Quiet Ones – all breathtaking songs that are greeted like firm favourites a mere few weeks after their ardent fan base has immersed themselves in them. 

Brett teases and conducts the adoring audience, released from covid prison he’s inevitably surfing the waves of their adulation like a sweat-shod Bryan Ferry with deadly cheekbones and perfect hair. He remains the most English of English pop stereotypes who has somehow survived the wreckage of the chemical years to look like a pop Olympian as he bounds around the stage living out the psychodrama of the huge songs. 

Putting the ‘om’ into comeback, Suede are somehow mind, body and soul eternal. They should have crashed and burned decades ago but they remain hungry and with a point to prove. As Brett’s expensive-looking white shirt melts with sweat and the intense poetry in motion the band reach a new gear. 

The gig is a triumph and Suede are back.

Again. 

Source: louderthanwar.com