Suede
Brixton Academy, London
19-21/05/2011

Of all the bands burying the hatchet in recent years for one last victory lap, Suede were surely the ones with the most to prove. After (debatably) inventing Britpop and ripping a decadent, depraved hole of sexual ambiguity and delicious danger through the 90s, their sad descent into, well, ‘A New Morning’ and eventual self-combustion would tarnish their legacy from thereon in. The poster boys for outsider excess, essentially, stopped being cool. But if last year’s triumphant reunion show at London’s O2 Arena went a long way to restoring public opinion of what Suede were really all about (and proving that the band were still able to cut the mustard live in fine form), then this weekend’s three-day run drives that message home. Playing their first three albums in full – ‘Suede’ (‘93), ‘Dog Man Star’ (‘94 ) and ‘Coming Up’ (’96) – their Brixton residency serves as a timely reminder of just how good the band, in all their drug-addled, decadent glory could really be. And, as we see over the three nights, that’s really, really bloody good.

Opening proceedings each evening are Chapel Club, who throw their doom-laden musings around with the kind of confidence that suggests it won’t be too long until they’re headlining the venue themselves. But from the swooping orchestral strings of ‘The Still Life’ that act as an introduction, it is all about Brett Anderson and his band of black-clad merry men. Tearing through their debut with the kind of thrilling vitriol that men half his age couldn’t muster, Anderson is lithe, dangerous and still better than pretty much any other frontman out there. Jumping, shimmying and fully lapping up the adulation that greets him in deity-like proportions; it’s the kind of performance that distills how to grow old disgracefully without slipping into parody.

The set, too, is almost flawless. ‘So Young’ piles in with its damaged clarion call and ‘Animal Nitrate’ gets the baying crowd dancing, but it’s the oft-sidelined tracks that really provide the thrills. ‘Pantomime Horse’’s broken, swooning laments are utterly mesmerising whilst ‘Sleeping Pills’ is all bitter coos and crashing guitars, and when the band re-emerge for the ‘second half’ (each day comprises an album in full, followed by a B sides and hits set) the likes of ‘To The Birds’ and ‘Killing of a Flashboy’ prove that the band’s heyday chucked out the classics in both quantity and quality.

‘Dog Man Star’, arguably Suede’s embittered creative peak, makes for the highlight of the weekend. ‘We Are The Pigs’ and ‘This Hollywood Life’ stomp their path with a filthy glint to their anti-establishment cries, whilst ‘Black Or Blue’ provides ultimate theatrics and ‘The Asphalt World’, in its nearly ten minute glory, is the crowning glory in the band’s arsenal. Heartwrenching, (melo)dramatic and unapologetically grandiose, it epitomises the true heart of the band with swooning majesty. Whilst, finishing with The Hits, is ‘Coming Up’ – packed to the brim with crowd-pleasers and rounding off proceedings with an oh-so-appropriate ‘Saturday Night’.

This is how you do reunion shows.

Lisa Wright