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Bush Hall was made for Brett Anderson. Tucked away
in the darker end of West London, facing out onto the
Uxbridge Road where junkies, tramps and meeja
post-production PAs vie for pavement space, it sits
amid the neon signs of fast-food shops and peeling
paint of cheap fabric emporiums, a venue culled from a
lost Suede B-side, an outdoor broadcast from
the asphalt world. Inside, there are chandeliers and
moulded plaster, outside the pubs dare you to proffer
allegiance to anyone but QPR.
Let's look at the history that has led us here. At
the dawn of Britpop, a band as idiosyncratic as The
Smiths, as glamly androgynous as David Bowie and
as dark as Joy Division swathed tales of
concrete jungles in orchestral opulence. Suede sang of
picnics by the motorway, of heroin and racism and made
Asda sound romantic.
It's been too long since they went away. Since
Brett Anderson pulled the plug with two incredible
nights at Brixton Academy and the Astoria, leaving us
with a claim that the band had stagnated and a promise
to See You In The Next Life... (I bought the
t-shirt).
In between, he treated us to The Tears, a
delve back into the past of what could have been, had
original guitarist Bernard Butler not left at
the height of the band's fame for one great single and
a career of unfulfilled promise. The Tears sounded
just like Suede did once and yes, we welcomed it, but
ultimately it was a project that was going nowhere
either.
But now Brett's back, with a new album and a set
that's no longer afraid of the past, content and
confident and sure of who he is: one of the most
talented performers of the past 15 years.
Tickets for tonight and the two subsequent shows
sold out in minutes but it's a curious crowd that
stands beneath Bush Hall's chandeliers. The eponymous
new album has been all over the internet for more than
a month (it's not officially released until the 26
March) and yet the audience barely seems to know any
of the songs: a few nods to forthcoming single Love Is
Dead, already familiar from the radio, but that's all.
Only one emo teen, wearing a See You In The Next Life
t-shirt, seems to have bothered to do his research.
Brett doesn't seem to mind. Exuberant and
energetic, in top shape and on top form, he belts
through the forthcoming album, offering a set of
all-new material. One Lazy Morning sounds particularly
like the anthemic Suede of old, Dust and Rain is the
new generation's paean to the needle, and Song For My
Father puts to rest the ghosts that haunted The Tears.
In the middle, he throws away Suede obscurities to
sort the wheat from the chaff. Most of the audience
don't even notice.
The new songs sound strong and fully-formed, a good
bridge between the sweeping orchestration of Dog Man
Star and the designed-for-live-performance Coming Up
and Head Music. If Here Come The Tears was the album
that would have followed Dog Man Star, this is the
album that would have followed A New Morning. It's not
a new direction, it sounds like the Brett we know and
love, but if you've missed him it's a welcome return.
He leaves the stage to an audience who like what
they've heard and comes back with an encore that
thanks them more than they deserve. A haunting, pared
down, acoustic version of The Wild Ones, a truly
anthemic Everything Will Flow, and a last shout of
Trash, for all of us who've been there before and who
wished he'd never gone away. Brett Anderson is God. No
argument.
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