Review | Suede at Portsmouth Guildhall: 'Growing old gracefully, but made us all feel So Young'
Almost 34 years ago, Suede released their debut single.
That’s an unreasonably long time ago for a band to be releasing an album as good as last year’s Antidepressants.
It’s even more unreasonable that a band in their fourth decade should sound as vital and potent as this lot do in a live setting.
They open with a three-punch attack lifted from that most recent update to their canon. Opener Disintegrate is a fine first track for both an LP and a show, its four-on- the-floor beat thundering across the Guildhall, the icy riff setting the scene for frontman Brett Anderson to begin the band’s onslaught on the audience.
The entire gig is breathless – repeatedly you feel pummelled – but it’s euphoric, a borderline evangelical experience. Dancing With the Europeans is a joy; its opening line, “My ghosts are your ghosts”, becomes shorthand for the recurring theme of the night.
Anderson’s lyrics are often about driving towards a shared experience: us against the world. "We’re trash, you and me”; Outsiders; Beautiful Ones... even the rare treat of a brand-new song arrives in the form of Tribe. On the nose? Maybe. But sometimes all you need is for someone to sing “you’re not alone,” and make you feel like they have your back.
When Anderson sings Life Is Golden from 2018’s The Blue Hour, accompanied only by piano, it’s a moment. Towards the end of the song, he drops the mic to his side and continues to sing. It’s truly magical – the vulnerability of a naked voice reverberating through a room so rapt you could hear a pin drop. “You’re never alone, your life is golden.”
For all the barrelling, posturing and prowling the stage like a spider monkey on heat, Anderson – and Suede’s – greatest quality is being the cool gang who let you hang out with them.
They’re growing old gracefully, but tonight they made us all feel So Young.