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| Suede - Cardiff Coal Exchange 05.30.2002 Brett Anderson lead singer of Suede steps onto stage with his band at the Cardiff Coal exchange with his characteristic sleek figure and angular features, is it natural for someone of his years to look like this? Anderson's voice resides somewhere between the glamour of Ziggy era Bowie and the camp knowing of the Smiths leader Morrisey. His group Suede have been telling tales of suburban nowhere towns Full of beautiful lovers and losers, against the backdrop of squalling indie guitar riffs for over ten years now. As much as they have evolved the loss of the genius guitarist Bernard Butler still hangs like a shadow over Suede Butler recently claimed to have not listened to suede since he left. Suede are back three years on from their relatively average last album "Head Music." This series of gigs one here, one in Birmingham and London is to promote their new album "New Morning" and new single "Positivity." Tonight they begin with new slower acoustic numbers such as Simon and lost in TV. Then move onto exhilarating old classics like "So Young" that swoops on the chorus line of "We're so young and so gone lets chase the dragon oh." The sparkling "Metal Mickey" and the gloriously yearning and anthemic "The Power." The problem is Lyrically New Suede lapse into rhyming by numbers on songs like "She's in fashion." One could imagine Brett developing the new suede single "Positivity" with a well thumbed Rogets rhyming dictionary. At moments The crowd seem to been entranced by Brett's showmanship as he snakes hips his way through "Trash" communally the audience rise arms aloft to greet one of their most glorious moments. Keeping their attention during the encore of the "Beautiful Ones," Anderson lassoo's his microphone above his head, before catching it, and continuing to reach up to sing. He also taunts the crowd with a cheeky irony labeling past albums "sh*t" and asking us the audience to guess the song "Everything will flow" from its first few bars. Suede are good tonight but whether their Knowing Glamour and Beautey will again be embraced by record buyers more comftable with the sanitized blandness of Travis and the dadrock of the Stereophonics, and Toploader is Uncertain. But tonight suede let us back into their unique world and show that ten years on they are still singing those sci-fi lullabies into the nightime. Bill C |