Introducing The Band

It's a very odd thing, being in the crowd for a band you're not entirely familiar with.  Well, it is for me anyway.

I'm more used to being one of the die-hards, clutching the barrier while singing along at the top of my voice, surrounded by familiar faces, like I'm at some sort of evangelical gathering.  Which is why going to see Suede play the Dublin Olympia last night was such an unusual event.

Don't get me wrong, I've always 'liked' Suede, but that was as far as it went.  They were never a band that grabbed me by the throat and forced me to listen.  My quota of androgynous glamour was pretty much filled by a host of other mid-nineties bands with snaked hipped singers and impressive fringes, thanks.  But when I saw Suede play the Belsonic festival this summer, I had a Damascene conversion caused by Brett Anderson leaning across the barrier and grabbing the hands of his assembled disciples - a conversion that led to my arrival at the Olympia.

Unfamiliar ground or not, old habits are hard to kick and I found myself anxiously grabbing my spot on the barrier.  Of course, this leads to a new set of problems - being on the barrier but not knowing all the song lyrics?  Shameful!  But when the band, or specifically when Brett and the sharp cheekboned Neil Codling took to the stage I quickly realised I was in the right place.

The main attraction to Suede, for me at least, has to be the drama.  The stirring orchestra playing over the speakers as they arrived was just the start.  Anderson gave a performance Judy Garland herself would be proud of: acting out the song lyrics, sitting on the steps to the stage crooning lustily into the microphone, getting emotional and batting away his tears with a fey flick of the wrist.

And the gyrating - my god, the gyrating.  Not even Dita Von Teese could put on such a shameless display of burlesque as this 46 year old Englishman.  Anderson straddled the barrier with his arms outstretched like some sort of oversexed messiah.  Throughout the course of the gig I must have had about 85% of his sweat-soaked anatomy in my face.  No matter how attractive you find a singer, it's still hard to know where to look when they've bent over the barrier next to you and are wiggling their bony backside in your face.  And let's not even start on Anderson's fondness for getting down on all fours...

Of course, I have to give credit to the previously mentioned Neil Codling - keyboards, guitar, cheekbones, hair, poses.  Fabulous poses.  He seems to spend most of his time on stage concentrating on his pout, which is fine by me as it's essentially the best pout in the business.  Anderson's white shirt was as good as see-through by the end of the night but Codling - Dorian Gray with a Korg - remained as cool as ice.  If it wasn't for Anderson whipping his microphone cord around his waist centre stage, watching Neil Codling pose would be a perfectly fine way to spend an evening.

Note to self: pointing at Neil Codling during the chorus of The Beautiful Ones may result in an icy cold stare of death from said band member.

And in the end, even if I didn't know every song lyric it was still an incredible gig.  Brett thanked the familiar faces and the unfamiliar faces alike, and we all left the venue sweaty, smiling dopily and thoroughly satisfied.  "We like to play strange, old songs" Brett told the audience at one point, "because we're a strange, old band".  Thank goodness for strange, old bands.