I think a lot about Wishbone Ash. A disproportionate amount. Partly because I have had to listen to them for around ten hours while researching a book. Partly because when I was a kid, I always found it curious that Wishbone Ash were advertised in the weekly music press but never reviewed.
Back then, broadsheets barely covered rock, so there was no room for their gigs and albums there. But they were never on Top of the Pops or The Tube or even Whistle Test either. Perhaps Tommy Vance occasionally gave them a spin on the Friday Rock Show, but other than that they were not on Radio 1. They existed entirely outside of what I perceived of as the world of rock.
At that point Wishbone Ash were 15 years on from their first album. Suede are 32 years on from theirs. Do today’s 16-year-olds think of Suede as I did Wishbone Ash? Probably. But for bands such as Suede – who will never again make headlines but can still make good records and money – there is now an entire infrastructure to support them.
Suede also understand the importance of making their albums into events. ‘Veteran band announces two shows at comfy sit-down venue’ is not the Suede way. So their appearance at the Royal Festival Hall was billed not as a gig, but as a Southbank residency, with a couple of performances in the smaller spaces that switched things up (an acoustic set, an orchestral concert, etc).
Suede seem to get people more excited with each passing year. At the Festival Hall, singer Brett Anderson encouraged those fans – whose knees were still up to it – to come down the aisles and congregate as close as they could to the front. He then climbed into the crowd, his lead trailing behind him, to be embraced tearfully and captured in multiple selfies as he sang.
Since reforming in 2010, Suede have made five albums, which are arguably more consistent and reflective than those of their earlier phase. It’s to their credit that the bulk of the set came from these latter records, but it wasn’t perfect. Antidepressants, their latest, is a fine record, but a lot of it lost its way live because the mix didn’t appear to be able to cope with the effects-laden, distinctly gothic guitar tones; where the instrumental melodies should have been there was a lot of mush, alas.
But it was terrific fun, Anderson an unceasing cheerleader, leaping off platforms at an age unsuited to this sort of thing, shirt soaked through inside ten minutes. And the songs that made people fall in love with them in the first place – ‘Metal Mickey’, ‘Animal Nitrate’, ‘Trash’ – cut through better, with their crashing chords. What were the people in their fifties and up thinking about as they sang along? ‘In your council home, he jumped on your bones/ Now you’re taking it time after time.’ Probably not bad sex and drugs.
Brett Anderson encouraged those fans whose knees were still up to it to congregate at the front
At the other end of their career, the Sophs opened their set at the Lexington with a faithful cover of Neil Young’s ‘Ohio’. My heart sank a little. It’s a fine song, but I really do not need to hear yet another young band taking it on to prove their authenticity. But then their show exploded because that cover was very much the outlier.
The Sophs are newly signed to Rough Trade and the three songs available on the streaming services – which are high-end alt-rock – give little clue to their brilliance on stage. They both look and sound like a group in which all six members disagree violently about how they should both look and sound. And it worked, with grunge riffs going into Balkan folk, and frontman Ethan Ramon, an Andrex puppy of energy, spitting out his words as if he can’t decide whether to be Dean Martin or Joey Ramone.
Listen to their songs, but also head to YouTube and watch the live footage: that’s what makes me think there might be some incredible records to come.
Comments