LIVE REVIEW: SUEDE – OLYMPIA THEATRE, DUBLIN

LIVE REVIEW: SUEDE - OLYMPIA THEATRE, DUBLIN 1
Photo-Ulrike Pfropper

For Suede’s latest live outing, Irish fans are treated to a show of two halves, a cinematic experience and an energetic live performance on the same night. Barely visible glimmers of the static band appear through the celluloid for the first half of the show while Suede perform their latest album, the acclaimed Night Thoughts from behind the screen in its entirety to a gritty and dark film directed by Roger Sargent.

The films subject matter deals with suicide and the harrowing death of a child. Musical highlights from this sequence are the storming No Tomorrow and I Don’t Know How to Reach You. I had listened to the Night Thoughts album repeatedly since its release and thought the songs were so powerful but hearing the songs and watching the images of the film I was witness to a whole new intense and sobering experience, the imagery that accompanied the final song The Fur and the Feathers brought a tear to my eye. Each track segues into one another seamlessly with Brett Anderson’s vocals souring over tight musical accompaniment from a polished band. It’s a perfect performance of an epic album.

As promised After a short interval Suede appear from behind the screen to play a collection of their hits and album tracks for the second half of the show. They launch straight into ‘Moving’ a song Brett Anderson wishes hadn’t been included on their eponymous debut album but admitted it was always a great live track, and he isn’t proved wrong as the Irish crowd laps up every note.

suede
Photo-Ulrike Pfropper

From here on in Brett and the band steam through energetic versions of their classics, including: Trash, Animal Nitrate, Heroine and Filmstar. Brett Anderson is as energetic as ever swinging his microphone and getting amongst the crowd while slowly revealing his athletic torso, he has never looked better and is clearly loving every moment.

The mood changes as Brett launches into a haunting acapella version of ‘Down’ from 1999’s Head Music. During a particularly quiet moment a member of the crowd shouts -“Brett,you’re a sexy bastard“, to much laughter from the rest of the theatre, Brett replies – ” you should see me in the morning”. The band finish off with live staples, Beautiful Ones and New Generation to rapturous applause from a satisfied Irish crowd.

With this current tour Suede have pulled off an intimate and unique experience for concert goers without having to put a screen in a large stadium with all the bells and whistles. Suede were outsiders when they appeared in the nineties and still there is still no other band around like Suede, and that’s fine by me. Tremendous!

Set list

suede-setlist-dublin16

Xsnoize Author
Mark Millar is the founder of XS Noize and looks after the daily running of the website as well as hosting interviews for the weekly XS Noize Podcast. Mark's favourite album is Achtung Baby by U2.

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