Suede, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, gig review: Band haven’t changed, but nor have they dulled

There are few bands who have tackled the angst and uncertainty of middle-age with as much clear-eyed dedication as that of their youth

Suede

“We are Suede, and you are the audience,” smiles Brett Anderson, the first instalment of his band’s full live return to UK stages almost complete. “We have this good relationship, don’t we?” It’s impossible to imagine Anderson, still possessed of a certain youthfully self-confident swagger at the age of 48, being genuinely nervous, but it wasn’t until the gentle acoustic encore of ‘Everything Will Flow’ that he appeared to relax. Last month Suede released their seventh album Night Thoughts, the second since their 2010 reunion and most successful since 1999’s Head Music, and with it appears to come a new level of ambition.

Of course, it’s now difficult to consider any pop music which bears a sense of self-awareness and aspiration without relating it at least in passing to David Bowie, and certainly not in Suede’s case. Anderson himself has expressed weariness with the comparisons even as he’s embraced the obvious fact that ‘Life On Mars’-vintage Bowie was one of Suede’s defining templates, yet his band, survivors of two and a half decades in one iteration or another, have proven not to be as chameleonic as their inspiration.

After all this time they still hang perfectly poised between the explosive energy of rock star life and the grey repression of commuter belt suburbs, and for this tour they’ve chosen to accompany the new record in its entirety with a film by music photographer Roger Sargent. Screened on a floor-to-ceiling gauze hanging in front of the band, who are for the most part invisible in the darkness or occasionally picked out by spotlight, the film works more as a series of vignettes timed to accompany each song.

Narratively it’s non-linear and hard to grasp; hopping back and forward through time, it shows the courting of a young couple, the apparent accidental death of their young son, and the man’s breakdown, assault of his partner and eventual suicide. There’s a certain vagueness to the telling, and a continual lapse into the main character’s seeming fantasy that he’s a wide-boy East End gangster - throwing in out-of-place scenes of gunplay and partying which would be more suited to a Guy Ritchie film – but Sargent photographs the washed-out council estates, neon-scarred streets and barren countryside evoked by this music beautifully.

These visual accompaniments to the searing ‘Outsiders’, with the couple “thrown like two winter roses into a broken vase”, ‘No Tomorrow’s bittersweet yearning to “fight the sorrow like there’s no tomorrow” and the painful nostalgia of ‘When You Were Young’ couldn’t be more well-matched. Guitarists Richard Oakes and Neil Codling play the whole set loudly and passionately, and Anderson, shirt unbuttoned to the navel, delivers a second half of hits including ‘Trash’, Animal Nitrate’, ‘Metal Mickey’ and ‘Beautiful Ones’ with piercing commitment and occasional forays through the crowd.

“When our possessions are in black bags and we’ve shuffled off to nursing homes,” he ponders at the end, in the face of ferocious enthusiasm from the crowd, “at least we know tonight we left a little plus sign in the world.” Suede haven’t changed, but nor have they dulled – indeed, there are few bands who have tackled the angst and uncertainty of middle-age with as much clear-eyed dedication as that of their youth.