Sarah and I had both recently been suffering with the colds that seem to have afflicted everyone we know ( Sarah more than me ), but we still dragged ourselves down a windswept M5 on a Monday night ( oh, the glamour! ) and rocked up to the venue just in time to see support band Bloodworm. Although possessing a singularly uninviting band moniker, the 'worm ( as I'm sure nobody calls them ) turned out to be a very talented, very tight, and frighteningly young band, with a neat line in Cure / Banshees post-punkery. Led by a young Pete Shelley-lookalike ( I mean, he really looked like him ) they cut quite gloomy figures, as befits the vibe, but had some very atmospheric and ethereal material, if slightly lacking in memorable hooks. They went down extremely well with the partisan crowd, which must have been satisfying for such a young band. Definitely ones to watch.
And then, at almost dead-on the expected time of 20:45, Brett Anderson and the Suede boys came out onto the stage to mass roars from the crowd. Well, in Brett's case he bounded onto the stage and pretty much bounded, leaped, twirled and gyrated for the next hour and a half. The man's a machine.
In a hugely confident move they started with three songs from the new album, starting with the kick-assery of Disintegrate ( my ear-worm of choice in the couple of weeks since the gig ), the monolithic Dancing With The Europeans and the vicious title track Antidepressants. We'd heard the last song previewed at the Cardiff Castle gig and it was great to now hear it in context with the other, super-tough new songs. An incredibly ballsy, take-no-prisoners opening to a gig, and they only went and followed that with two of their most crowd-pleasing anthems - Trash and Animal Nitrate - and the venue erupted.
One of the real standout songs of the set was She Still Leads Me On, Brett's tribute to his mother, one of the most nakedly emotional and soul-baring songs that Suede have put out. In a career noted for many self-consciously artificial and intentionally surface-level lyrics, this is a real sign of maturity - as Brett has said in interviews, he can't write teenage lust songs at the age of 58. The set took another turn for the emotional as most of the band left the stage, with only Brett and Neil Codling remaining to play an acoustic Life Is Golden, dedicated to Brett's son who was in the audience: "He looks a lot like me but he's a more handsome version." You could literally hear a pin drop as the duo played this beautiful song, Brett at one point dropping the mike to his side and singing completely a capella to a hushed, hypnotised audience. A very special moment indeed.
Then they concluded with some absolute bangers - So Young, Metal Mickey and Beautiful Ones - and the crowd went absolutely nuts. It all got a bit too rowdy and sweaty ( in February! ) for Sarah, so we made our way to the side of the hall where it was a bit more sedate. ( Of course, I would have preferred to have been in the thick of it, but I could see she was getting overwhelmed. )
Suede came back out to encore with The Only Way I Can Love You, a recent favourite from the Autofiction album - Brett calls Suede "the anti-nostalgia band" so, of course, they pointedly finished with a modern song and what a barn-storming end to a fantastic set it was. Suede are definitely charging off wildly into middle age, undaunted by time or their history, making excellent music and playing at the very top of their game. They really are the beautiful ones.
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