Suede ready to sparkle with Night Lights show

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie

Playing their only Irish date of the summer, Suede promise to bring swagger, glam and some truly iconic tunes to the Galway International Arts Festival on Saturday, July 23.

Their 1993 eponymous debut and its spectacular follow-up, Dog Man Star, set Suede apart from the decade’s laddish Britpop scene. Subsequent albums yielded stellar songs like Beautiful Ones, Trash and Electricity.

Last January, Suede released their seventh studio album Night Thoughts. It was accompanied by a feature film, directed by Roger Sargent. On their current tour, Suede have been playing along to the movie behind a screen, and they will bring this rock show with a twist to Galway.

“That was one of the reasons we wanted to play at the festival, it’s an arts festival,” says bassist Mat Osman. “It felt right. There have been a few concerts we haven’t been able to do it at, it’s been a shame, because I want people to see it. We play the film with us hiding behind the screen, and we’re occasionally lit up. Then we do another set of more traditional Suede material.”

For the second set, punters will get to see the visceral connection Suede make with an audience – something that’s especially the case with their prowling, charismatic singer Brett Anderson. The first set will be something different for a rock concert and Mat is enjoying this foray into new territory.

“It’s a strange feeling to know that people can’t see what you’re doing,” he says. “So – this is going to sound strange! – it’s a very musical experience. Sometimes a gig is about so much more than actually the music. But for this, although it’s a film, it feels more musical than anything we’ve ever done.”

Suede’s pianist Neil Codling and guitarist Richard Oakley wrote most of Night Lights as one continuous piece of music. In their 20 years as a band, this was a first.

“We normally work round each other’s houses, playing guitars, writing stuff, demoing – a very ‘songwriterly’ way,” says Mat. “Brett had to feel his way around it. It’s quite strange not being able to say ‘tweak this’ or ‘move this’.

“The record changed from that initial 45 minutes. We added songs, and we took stuff away. But the shape of it, and the way everything flows together; that was set really early on, before we had songs, or an idea about of what the record was about, or how it was going to feel.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.