Fan Review - Laugardalsholl Stadium, Rekjavik
Suede played at a sports hall called Laugardalsh闤l just outside the Reykjavik
center. The night's program was told to start at 6pm and the doors were opened
some minutes past it. While waiting outside we talked a bit with SIS's David
(Barnett) and he told us that Suede was going to play 9 new songs. That sounded
VERY interesting... As the show was a part of a festival there were five other
bands playing on Saturday night before Suede. They were Icelandic bands Minus,
Surefni and Egill Saebjornsson and after them Thievery Corporation and Flaming
Lips. We didn't have to wait for a very long time between the bands, they
mostly took their stuff with them while leaving the stage and the next one was
almost immediately ready to play.
Except the Flaming Lips, they had some problems with their equipment and needed
a LOT of time (or so it felt like!) to get everything ready. They played a good
show, though, and also Brett watched a part of it from the side of the stage.
The stage was quite low and near the audience, so the front row was a good
place to be. The problem was photographers blocking the view quite efficiently,
especially during the whole Flaming Lips show. Luckily they weren't allowed to
do that when Suede was on stage, then they were pushed out after the usual two
songs. (by the way, Damon Albarn was among them, and yes, he also took pictures
of Suede)
When Suede finally got on stage the first thing I noticed was Brett's leather
trousers... Next was Neil's LONG hair! This time the show started more
peacefully than we have got used to lately. First song was one of the new ones,
called Oceans, a very beautiful one. After it they played Beautiful Loser,
which rocked and instantly became my favourite new Suede song. It was followed
by two "old" songs, Can't Get Enough and Trash, and the audience seemed to love
them, especially Trash.
One of the best moments in the show followed a bit later with The Wild Ones.
Brett started singing it sitting in an interesting "yoga"-position, smiling and
seeming to enjoy a lot. The song sounded great as ever, and was followed by
another heart-breaker, Everything Will Flow and an untitled lovely new song.
Then it was time to "rip it off" by Beautiful Ones, very heavily played She and
the kicking new song You Belong To Me. She's In Fashion followed and then it
was time for Brett to thank the audience and the last song (before encore) was
the very dog man star-like When The Rain Falls.
Then we shouted for a while, as always, and back they came. First encore song
was called Simon and Brett told it would be on a soundtrack soon. Next song,
Lost In TV, sounded very promising as the other new songs had done. Then it
was time for some more rocking with Starcrazy before the ever-lovely Saturday
Night. Brett thanked us and told that we were "a special audience".
We kept on shouting and making noise for some time and even though Saturday
Night was already played I thought they just MIGHT come back again... But they
didn't.
This was one of the most unusual Suede gigs I've ever been to. Not only the
fact that I had traveled all the way from Finland to Iceland to see them, but
also the amount of new songs played made it all seem a bit unreal. Usually when
you hear a band playing a lot of new stuff it means that the album will be on
stores very soon if not already. But this time it was told that all the new
songs are still unfinished and all of them probably won't make it to the next
album. For obvious reasons this gig wasn't as much a "singalong" as some but
more concentrated on listening. Still, the atmosphere rose during the gig and
it really "rocked", as also Brett himself said shortly after. Quite an
outstanding achievement, I'd say. And well worth the traveling...
And a bit about how they looked like... Brett's hair had grown and the fringe-
style seems to be getting longer. He wore a tight black t-shirt, leather
trousers and sandals, but soon kicked the shoes off and sang bare-footed. He
seemed to enjoy the show a lot, came often very near us in the front to sing
and smile.
Mat's hair also seemed to have grown a bit since the last time I saw him. He
was wearing a white (? hard to say with those lights) shirt. Simon stayed
behind his drums (a new drum set? I'd guess! or then the lights made it seem to
be of different colour than usual) and when I met him after the show, he looked
as gorgeous as ever (and was as friendly as ever) and seemed to have lost some
weight - as if he wasn't thin enough already! Richard and Neil both had grown a
very long hair, especially Neil. He looked fine and smiled nicely while walking
through the stage. He also played some guitar while Richard sat behind the
keyboards.
All the band seemed to have a really good time, they laughed and smiled a lot.
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