Stay Beautiful, Beautiful Ones!
A new post will be out after the weekend. A lot of travelling in June has caught up with me, but fear not. Last night, I saw two bands, one of whom put on an absolutely electric performance.
Last night at Alexandra Palace, North London’s Point Nemo for public transport access, I saw the co-headliner tour from The Manic Street Preachers and Suede. I was pleased with both setlists and to hear the Manics perform the closing track from 1996’s Everything Must Go.
More and more junk
There’s part of me that whenever I listen to the Manic Street Preachers’ 1996 album Everything Must Go, I’m amazed and taken back that it even exists, and then amazed even more that the album was a number one and one of the best-selling records in the UK for both 1996 and 1997.
Even more delicious was Suede’s performance; Brett Anderson was showing up frontmen half his age on this form, leaping about singing from inside the crowd and inciting thousands to sing along to less well-known Suede singles.
The closing track from 1994’s Dog Man Star, ‘Still Life,’ also made its tour debut, a real treat for those who spent much of their youth listening to that album.
There by the window
On 1993’s ‘Animal Nitrate’, Suede’s Brett Anderson sings - well, it is more of a tuneful yet strained, wailing yelp than singing. Still, regardless, the words coming out of his mouth seem to suggest a link between the desperation of a bedsit in an early 1990s British council estate and the raw intensity of sadomasochistic sex. For more on ‘Animal Nitra…
We will be back after the weekend with a track from 1977.
Great to hear how good both bands were. Having seen Suede live on most tours since Dog Man Star, they just keep getting better and better these days - and I swear Brett is a force of nature. But gutted to have missed this one, particularly as this the second time today I’ve read how good Still Life has been live on these dates. (The only plus side is that I’m once again saved from trying to navigate across London from Epsom to Alexandra Palace.)