A rare but precious thing about live concerts is that special moment when a band performs *for* and *with* the audience rather than just playing *to* them. And it's even better when the music doesn't suck - when it doesn't, it can positively soar. Case in point: the London Suede.
As a live act, Suede are a unique beast. On paper, all the facts ring true: there's the band, eager to prove to the world, and themselves, that their initial acclaim was no fluke. That, with the addition of young guitarist Richard Oakes, and more recently with keyboardist/ backing vocalist and sometime songwriter Neil Codling, they can only become stronger and better. And more importantly, they have to prove to Americans (barring those cult-pockets of Anglophiles and ex-pats), that they exist. And that their music is worth repeated listens.
It certainly is. The domestic release of their recent album, the more poppier than glam Coming Up, hinted at the potential for a great live show. Milk-fed on Bowie and T. Rex, singer-frontman Brett Anderson jumps enthusiastically to his own music, relishing the sold-out Fillmore crowd's screams and rumbling feet and outstretched hands, slowing down only to sing one of his Phantom-of-the-Opera-esque love songs for the 90's indie-pop listener ( like the lilting "Wild Ones" and the elegant "By the Sea"). Themes of frustration and anger divined through sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll that made their previous albums such a visceral release in concert give way to themes of stylish fun and frolic, now divined through, well, sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. The crowd can still sway and drown to the band's earlier sound, but now they can also pogo ecstatically at the wonder of a soundscape like that of the delectably catchy "Beautiful Ones": "high on diesel and gasoline/ psycho for drum machine/ shaking their bits to the hits."
Bassist Mat Osman and drummer Simon Gilbert anchor the show solidly, Oakes shakes his guitar a bit for that rockstar effect, Codling sits louchely at his keyboard, a deadpan "ah popstardom is so boring" stare at the crowd and occassional searches for another cigarette. His synth-string and vocal additions on songs like "So Young" and "She" flesh out the live sound, creating a fuller and lovelier, more three-dimensional Suede.
But the show is mostly Brett's. Anderson pumps and preens for the crowd, inciting sing-alongs, bouncing and driven by his own music, feeding the crowd's energy as well as his own. As far as charismatic singers go, he's got a lot to offer in such a skinny frame - a singer by the people and for the people. Once a sexually-ambiguous force given to smacking his ass with the mike and doing provocatively sensual Indian dances, he now confidently strides, jumps, and shakes along with the fans. "You're not singing!" he chides them mid-song, to which the obedient crowd shout along to his chorus of approval.
Opening act Longpigs, a Sheffield outfit in the vein of Adorable and Echo and the Bunnymen, provided a melodically subdued pop performance, with lead singer Crispin Hunt pulling a Jarvis Cocker by inviting each audience member to "gently fondle the genitals of the person to your left" for the love song that followed. Come to think of it, they were a perfect opener to the Suede show, which contained primarily songs from Coming Up, but also selections from previous albums as well as haunting b-sides ("Europe Is Our Playground"). Songs which sound merely great on stereo are unleashed as new beasts on stage, and become interactive pieces which enjoin the crowd in one of those special live "moments."
