Suede
When: 14th March 2023
Location: O2 Academy
Suede are the band that kick-started Britpop. Coming to Glasgow’s O2 Academy on 14th March 2023.
Formed in London in 1989, Suede was created by singer-songwriter Brett Anderson and bassist Mat Osman, longtime school friends who were joined by Anderson’s university girlfriend Justine Frischmann and later Bernard Butler as guitarists.
The band got its start playing small gigs in Camden Town. Even before they released any music, Suede grew popular from word of mouth and good press from magazines about their electrifying live shows.
After a couple of years, Frischmann departed to start the group Elastica and drummer Simon Gilbert came on board. Suede’s first single The Drowners arrived in 1992 and was a moderate success, with their second single Metal Mickey following and reaching No.17 in the UK charts. Shortly after, Suede signed to Sony’s Nude Records label.
In 1993
In 1993, as Anderson sparked controversy with comments about his sexual orientation, the androgynous indie rockers broke through with their No.7-charting third single, Animal Nitrate. When Suede released their self-titled debut album later that year it landed them at No.1 on the UK albums charts and at the forefront of the Britpop scene.
Recording their grandiose and experimental follow-up, 1994’s Dog Man Star, was fraught with tension that led Butler to quit the band. He was replaced by Richard Oakes when Suede toured the album, which had been well-received by critics and peaked at No.3 on the charts.
Keyboardist Neil Codling joined the group in 1996, and the five-piece went on to release their second No.1 album Coming Up, which spawned five top 10 singles: Beautiful Ones, Trash, Lazy, Filmstar and Saturday Night. Nominated for the 1997 Mercury Prize, it became Suede’s biggest-selling album worldwide.
Two more albums – 1999’s Head Music and 2002’s A New Morning – were recorded before the band split in 2003 after a marathon two-and-a-half hour last concert at the London Astoria.
Reunited in 2010
They reunited in 2010 for a special gig as part of Teenage Cancer Trust, which was followed by a couple more shows, a summer festival appearance in Norway and the two-disc The Best Of Suede greatest hits compilation. In 2011, Suede continued to perform at festivals and tour the globe, while 2013 saw the arrival of their sixth album Bloodsports featuring the lead single It Starts And Ends With You. The band supported it with an extensive European and UK tour.
In 2015, their No.6-charting album Night Thoughts was unveiled alongside a film directed by photographer Roger Sargent.
The group’s eighth album produced by Alan Moulder (Arctic Monkeys, Queens Of The Stone Age) came out in 2018. Written as a continuous piece of work, it contained 14 songs that were thematically linked and featured a choir, spoken word and string arrangements.
Suede unveiled another compilation, Beautiful Ones: The Best Of Suede 1992-2018, in late 2020 and also confirmed details for a UK tour celebrating 25 years of Coming Up that would see them play the album in full.
Secret Shows
Suede performed a pair of secret shows under the guise of Crushed Kid – an idea that saw Suede taking the ‘back to basics’ nature of their forthcoming album Autofiction to the extreme by playing live under a fake name.
“Autofiction is our punk record,” Brett Anderson says. “No whistles and bells. Just the five of us in a room with all the glitches and fuck-ups revealed; the band themselves exposed in all their primal mess.” Their aim was to create an album capturing the power and energy that exists between Suede and their audience at gigs.
Suede later released a companion piece to the new album with their first short film production, Autofiction: A Short Film. Directed by Katie Lambert (MrMr Films) and created in collaboration with Suede, the production was described as “essential and immediate” by AnOther Magazine, and explores the complexities of memory, the perceived truth, communication and anxiety in human relationships. Themes at the core of Suede’s new album, which, as its title suggests, is one of Brett Anderson’s most personal records yet.
Suede also announced headline UK tour dates for March 2023, performing classics, hits and tracks from their forthcoming album, Autofiction.
