Suede arrived in Murcia after two shows in quick succession: Barcelona's Cruïlla on Thursday, followed by Pirineos Sur's floating stage on Friday. With only one day to rest—or, rather, to travel—you might have expected Brett Anderson to arrive subdued and careful with his energy. The exact opposite happened.
The concert started about twenty minutes after the scheduled time. The nearly 1,500 people gathered at Mamba Garden waited calmly, without excessive nervousness, as if drugged by the soporific heat of a premium level Murcian summer night. The terrace was very well set up, decorated with a certain Caribbean air, with all kinds of bars and enough space to not feel confined, a kind of micro-oasis surrounded by the rhythm and skyline of a big city. The heat, however, altered any perception of reality: we were not crowded, but those 1,500 people seemed like 5,000 breathing into the same glass.
Most of the audience were over forty: people who had come specifically to see Suede and knew that reaching the front row for this band, in this heat, carried a punishing physical cost. Small groups had been stationed at the entrance since six for a show advertised at half past nine; waiting three hours in those conditions should count towards an Ironman. Still, this was a standalone concert, with none of the festival crowd simply waiting for the next artist. You could feel the difference in the attention, the easy camaraderie, the respect and emotion during the slower passages, and the speed with which the whole terrace became a choir at Anderson's signal. It is remarkable how, when everyone wants the same thing, goodwill fills the air and even cigarettes are shared.
From the first minute, the night, the band and the stars were organized around Brett. They opened with Disintegrate and the shirt, loosened by sweat, began to wrinkle against his skin, giving him the appearance of an iguana, a wild lizard with moist, shiny skin. He ran, jumped, knelt, climbed the monitors and disappeared among the first rows with the microphone in hand, advancing like a messiah among dedicated faithful, incredulous of so much happiness, cell phone in hand.
Anderson does not merely sing the songs. He draws them from within, channels them through his arteries and releases them through a performance involving his entire body. Every movement connects to a word; every expression to an intonation, drum hit, melodic inflection or riff embedded in the song. On fast tracks he is a lit fuse. On slower ones he contracts, writhes and laments, turning stillness into drama and emotion. That physical interpretation kept the concert intense even when the tempo dropped: Suede exchanged electricity for tension and speed for ache, while the emotional pressure continued to hammer at the senses.
The band held everything much more calmly. Mat Osman remained cunning, attentive, working from the bass without contesting space from the singer and with the occasional hint of acceleration. Richard Oakes, the untouchable wax doll: neat, motionless and precise, watching Brett unravel, shred by shred. The contrast increased as the songs went by. Oakes looked like he had just come out of the dressing room; Anderson, as if he had swum across the concert.
The sound served the performance well without being flawless. From the front, there was enough volume, clarity and intensity to give the guitars weight while allowing the voice to cut cleanly through the mix. Solid and more than respectable.
One pleasant surprise was how naturally the classics and the “new” songs coexisted in a carefully balanced set. The recent material carried its own energy and entered without disturbing the night's pulse. Trash, Animal Nitrate and The Drowners retained their instant recognition and decades of accumulated emotion; June Rain and Dancing with the Europeans brought surprise, risk and the sense that something unanticipated could still happen. That balance says much about Suede today: the present can look the past in the eye, and onstage the two eras nourish, merge with and magnify one another. Combined with Brett's commitment, the result was a powerful, devastating set—the kind of genuinely thrilling live show you experience only a handful of times a year.
The visual section was correct, accompanying it effectively, without standing out too much or demanding attention. At no time did the screens force us to stop looking at the band. It may be a limitation of the assembly, or a virtue. That night, with Anderson roaming every inch of the stage, competing with him would have been clumsy and an absolutely losing battle. It's painful to imagine what the viewers in the background were missing; Personally, I consider that the difference in a show like yesterday's between being in front or being behind means having attended two different shows, but of course, not all of us can be in front and this time there were no screens to show even a substitute for the savagery that was happening there in the pot, in the front, in paradise.
A tip for photographers: if you are covering Suede, bring plenty of high-capacity memory cards. Brett will devour them.
The final stretch was a criminal succession —So Young, Metal Mickey, Beautiful Ones and, in the encore, Saturday Night— which found the terrace completely devoted and the band still pushing with energy, and no one seemed to want that night to end. Nobody, except Brett Anderson's battered microphone, which after bumps, pulls and low flights had already given enough and was eager to get the case.