Suede

The Octagon Centre (actually is octagonal!) and holds a couple of thousand people I'd guess (I could be way wrong) it was more or less full when Suede came out.
Before that though, came Strangelove, and before that we were treated to a listen of the Garbage LP through the P.A. which was pretty good, I heard a couple of complaints when they turned it off. Strangelove were good, I was quite surprised 'cos I saw them do a song or two live a few years ago and they sucked. The lead singer (don't know any of their names) was up for a bit of banter, and proved to be a bit of a cynic so I found myself quite liking him. The lead guitarist (the one with the springy fringe) was excellent! energetic, inventive and a lot more imagination that I thought! Cool guy, almost as skinny as me. They opened with what was probably their best song from the set of 7 or 8. I didn't catch the title, but if anyone knows what Strangelove open their sets with and can let me know I'd like to track it down. On the whole their performace was good. The titles I did manage to catch were "She's on Fire", "Sway" (their next single I'm told) and "Casualties".

Ok, Suede. They were excellent! definitely a good gig for them. The sound was good, the mix of material was good, Bretts voice was great throughout the whole set! The young boy Richard Oakes (new guitarist) did more than prove himself and newest recruit Neil Codling (keyboards) was solid, despite having minimal participation on some of the older songs.
At this point I have to confess I don't have the new Suede record yet (*shame*) so I may be a bit dodgy on some of the song titles. I think they opened with "She" which sounded great, Richard Oakes oozing all the confidence you like (I can't believe the guy is 3 months younger than me!). They then went straight into "Trash" which obviously went down well - much jumping about all round. Next came a couple of oldies, "Herione" - an absolute classic, the best performance of the night! Brett hit everything just right! and then "Animal Nitrate" (Brett asking if anyone remembered it) also great! A couple more from the new lp followed, one of which was "By The Sea", the other I'm not sure of, before a couple more old ones, "The Wild Ones" and "So Young". The other tracks played from the new LP all sounded good, even the slowed down songs. "Film Star" was particularly impressive. One surprise inclusion in the set was the Trash B-side "Europe is our playground", which was probably the low point, but still not bad. They wound up the set with "New Generation" (probably still the best thing they've recorded) and finally "Beautiful Ones", the next single.
Suede are definitely back! as good as they ever were if this gig is anything to go by, despite the absence of "Metal Mickey" and "Stay Together". Must get my hands on the new record...

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