Entertainment For Lively Minds
SUEDE, 100 Club/ Manchester Ritz / Albert Hall nostalgiafest 2010
So this is happening over the weekend/ next few days and i'm trying to look forward to it but not expecting much. All of it's for charity so fair's fair and that, but all of it somewhat predictably without original lead guitarist Bernard Butler returning to the fray.
I saw this and the original line up perhaps 13,14 times in their heyday in the early 1990s, but over the years like with almost any youthful passion for a band, the ardour waned and i pretty much gave up on listening to them altogether many years back.
I should really enter the spirit of the occasion, stop moaning and just enjoy the gig i'm going to (the Manc Ritz show) and honestly i wish them all well and everything, but my heart's not quite in it yet. Main reason for my sense of oncoming gloom is i saw this line up do a going-through-the-motions job in that frequently cheerless slot; 'The Glastonbury Pyramid Stage at tea-time' in 2003. A bit depressing.
Still, i've got the weekend to gee myself up into the swing of things, crack open Dog Man Star and speed-read my copy of their biography, see if i can still clamber into my 1994
'Gay Animal Sex' t shirt (banned by the HMV chain!).
If you're going to any of the 3 gigs, what are you expecting?
I hope you enjoy it and .. i hope i can too by the time Sunday comes around!
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The Albert
I'll be there next Wednesday.
Have decided to spend a rare free afternoon in the Natural History Museum around the corner, which I haven't been to since I was five - many years ago. Particularly looking forward to seeing if the blue whale in the whale hall has quite the same absolutely awe-inspiring effect as it did on me thirty-six years since...
I don't have the same sort of expectations for the Suede gig. I imagine it will be very good, though.
I don't think they'll be as perfunctory as your Glasto 2003 lowlight - time has passed, this is a limited venture, and they'll not be wanting to toss it off on the big stage. The music press will be watching and good reviews could generate new carpets and double-glazing for all the lads.
It'll be, musically, nowt but a nostalgic trawl through some of their better loved moments, one or two curve-balls (perhaps a couple of b-sides that have taken on greater stature with age and that they never played live at the time). It's a certainty that we'll get 80% of their singles, I think, but I'd dearly love to hear Modern Boys and The Living Dead.
Perhaps they'll even wheel Bernie on for a couple of songs.
Sorry to break this to you
I took my girl there in January and the Whale bit was closed for refurbishment
That's...
... a bit of a disappointment...
Just visited the NHM site - the hall reopens on Friday.
Is my timing really that flawed?
Suede were
one of my faves once I got over the initial shock of them on that Thursday night Late Review, but somehow I never wanted to see them live. Like Mansun my other top fave of the period, I felt they couldn't live up to the records.
Then I got Suede's Love & Poison VHS for Christmas. JEEZIZ! what a band.
When BB left I stuck with them and saw Brett develop into a great front man, up there with Ferry IMO and Oakes had the licks. He just didn't have what Bernard had, Bernard was one of those guys who could get a tune out of a cheese sandwich. He was a genius, but only for a brief period.
I don't mind that, it happens and I still have too many great Suede tunes to enjoy.
Slight tangent
...Mansun were very good live, as it goes - clearly they weren't going to be able to replicate all of the recorded intricacies of the likes of Grey Lantern, but they carried it off well enough.
Carry on.
thanks
Auntie
The Mecca of the modern dance The Ritz
ill be at the Ritz on sunday.
Really looking forward to it. On record there was a downward curve from Dog Man star but they still have a damn fine back catalogue.
Saw them at the Free Trade 94, Apollo 96 and Lancashire Cricket Ground supporting Bowie in 2000.
Still reckon Brett will weave his magic on the night.
Bring it on!!
Brett
has turned into a great front man for an English guitar based rock band.
after all, that's what Suede were
I was at the 100 Club on Saturday night...
... and they were great - very much a Best Of set based mostly around "Coming Up", no surprises (certainly no BB). Brett is a great frontman, now looking even more like Hugh Grant's younger, foppier brother, his solo "The Living Dead" was a highlight. Surprisingly little between-song chat, all of it of the "everyone alright?" nature, perhaps he was just overwhelmed...? I'd be very interested to hear if Manchester was any different.
(PS Am deliberately keeping this short as I'm planning on doing a fuller write-up in the "My night out with" section.)
thank
you