GIG REVIEWS

Suede
@ The Leeds Metropolitan
4th November 2002
www.vanguard-online.co.uk

 Over the last decade Suede have had a rollercoaster ride of arriving and departing members and arriving and departing quotidian success. Through it all they've kept a hardcore of positively rabid fans and a genuine affection from the kids of the nineties. This evening showed what inspired that - some solid stagecraft, an energetic rock show and the lazy vocal stylings of Brett Anderson. As Brett launched into the first song I could see him fiddling with a belt mounted gizmo - either a Bowie-ometer or a crotch inflator. I decided on the former as the Laandan boy inflections piled on, adding that infectious snag to his voice. If I'd been closer I might have seen his teeth going crooked then straight again as he twiddled. They threw in the current single - the lovely Positivity - as the second song, confirming their challenge to Pulp as the kings of everyday magic. Everything Flows was next then You And Me. Thing is, I knew far more Suede songs than I thought I did and so would you. The band shifted from a glam rock boogie to riffing then back into the sort of song that would have most people swaying along with a lighter in their hand - Everybody Wants You Now. Now, the 'you' in the song can only be Brett. The man loves himself and draws us in too. He struts like King Mick of Rolling-shire and has brought his own posing box to the stage front. Regularly he steps up and silhouettes himself as he stretches into a pose. And he makes us love him too, the pond staring at Narcissus. Occasionally as he stepped over the line and, organising some audience singalong, I could see him in Butlins in ten years time, but the band kept him in line. After one particularly naff episode of swinging the microphone then wrapping himself up, the band rescued him by throwing in a couple of bars of Purple Haze before hitting Animal Nitrate. This is a tight band - lovely music and dancing lines from the bass. High notes seem to have disappeared from the vocals - Brett covering for the high choruses of She's In Fashion and The Beautiful Ones by getting the crowd to sing them. This was a show that mixed plenty of hits with equally strong new material. Fed the fans and probably caught a few new ones. They closed the main part of the set with the next single - Obsession. 'It's the way you pickyour clothes Off the floor. It's the way you scratch your skin When you yawn'. Lovely stuff.

Ross McGibbon