The David Bowie I knew, and what it says about me

There's been no end of great (and also rotten) pieces written about David Bowie, but none perhaps as strange as former NME editor Steve Sutherland's bit which appears in the Stratford Herald. Oddly - I suspect as a quirk of a local paper's publishing system - the online version appears under his wife's byline.

It turns out Steve attempted to save Bowie from Tin Machine by sending him a shoegaze mixtape:

Now, knowing his reputation as a magpie, scarfing up other people’s ideas, sprinkling some fairy dust on them and then successfully representing them as his own, I figured Dave might benefit from an earful of some new stuff, so duly made him a cassette.

The tracklisting went something like Lush, Moose, Chapterhouse, Adorable , Slowdive, The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Telescopes, Ride — a veritable who’s who of shoegazers making a name for themselves at the time and a line-up I felt sure would top-up Dave’s creative juices.

Just goes to show how wrong you can be! A few weeks after I sent him said tape, I received a very nicely wrapped package which contained a small broken-up jigsaw of Michelangelo’s David. When the pieces were all put in place, there was a message handwritten on the back in, if I recall correctly, green ink, the gist of which went something like, “Thanks for the lovely tape. Not really my cup of tea. Try this instead.” The “this” was a cassette tape of Different Trains, an interminable modern classical piece by avant-garde composer Steve Reich performed by the dreaded Kronos Quartet. Shudder.

It turns out that Steve - by this point having moved from the Melody Maker to the NME - had a bit more luck with the next generation of British indie stars:

My last encounter with Mr Bowie was not long after I took over editing NME. All the staff hated me for reasons we needn’t go into here but I figured — rightly as it turned out — that if I could deliver a journalistic coup, they might come around.

So what I did was arrange for David Bowie to meet Brett Anderson from Suede, who were then the hottest band in Britain. I sat in on and taped their conversation with Brett, being a big fan, asking tons of questions and Bowie, being Bowie, offering up sage avuncular advice about not doing too many drugs like he once did etc.

Again, a fun day made easy by Bowie’s polite and gracious ease in company, and his genuine interest in what Brett had to say.

Brett and Bowie, coming together to save an NME editor. There's surely a Hollywood movie in that?

Taylor Swift shakes it off, rakes it in

Ever wondered what Taylor Swift takes home from a live appearance? Quite a bit:

One thing that is clear is that the concert appears to have made money for everyone involved.

The show earned $843,947 that will be split between the authority — hence taxpayers — and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs get half of the profit under the team's stadium agreement with the authority.

Swift's fans bought $40,784 in merchandise during the show. They sipped and gobbled $244,626 in drinks and food at concession stands. The parents of fans and those old enough to drive paid $124,798 in parking.

That's what everyone else made, of course. Swift would have made at least four million dollars by pocketing the full revenue from the tickets - or, at least, the Corporate Taylor Swift.

It's quite a distance from Suede's current run of dates, which - as Mat Osman explained to a fan hoping for US dates - aren't quite as economically viable:

@texalese I doubt it Alese. TBH we're losing money on every show we do this way so we have to keep the tour shortish.

— Mat Osman (@matosman) November 14, 2015

Via @jamesthegill & Hypebot

Suede: Filmstars

Four-fifths of me is very excited about this:

One-fifth of me is thinking 'Broadchurch: The Concept Album".

Glastonbury 2015: How did Suede go down?

Suede were astonishing last night - headlining the John Peel Stage. Obviously, having neither Lee Nelson or Kanye West on stage with them gave them something of an advantage, and obviously my waistline and hairline makes me a bit biased. So don't take my word for it. Here's a quick round-up of Suede reviews.

It's fair to say that the Western Gazette's reviewer hasn't exactly kept up with the band over the years:

Starting with two lesser known songs, Brett Anderson, Bernard Butler and co entered the stage as though they owned the place, with a studied nonchalance that they had more than earned as a band that at one point nearly did.

There was a lot of smoke and those flags blocking the camera views on the BBC coverage, but even so, I suspect the return of Bernard Butler would have been a bit more noticeable.

And, not wanting to carp, but... Mercury Prize. Three number one albums. Fastest selling debut album in a decade. That's a bit more than "nearly did", surely?

Anyway, the paper warms up:

And then, as the first few notes of megahit Trash were heard something suddenly snapped.

Lead singer Brett Anderson's standoffish manner was thrown aside and his utter delight to hear thousands of fans still remember the words became plain for all to see.
[...]
Comperes say a lot of things: but when the guy closing the tent after Suede exited told the crowds they had just watched the best performance of Glastonbury, I couldn't help but agree.

While the Telegraph's liveblog tried gamely to enjoy Kanye, they were getting reports the highlights were elsewhere:

Hard to believe, but people are watching other bands at Glastonbury now. Rupert is at Suede, maybe with all those people that signed the petition saying Kanye shouldn't play.

Rupert Hawksley: God knows what Kanye West is up to on the Pyramid Stage but it would be a miracle if he gets a response to any tune quite as raucous as the one just experienced at the John Peel stage as Suede rattled through Brit Pop classic, Trash.

The NME news desk tried to keep a sense of journalistic detachment, but couldn't quite:

1996 single 'Trash' was played early on in the set, followed by more Britpop favourites including 'Animal Nitrate' and 'We Are The Pigs'. The former track saw the first big singalong of the night. Anderson kept stage chat to a minimum, but did encourage the crowd to "fucking have it" during 'Trash', while he spent a large portion of 'Killing Of A Flashboy' writhing around the floor. An acoustic 'Living Dead' saw the frontman put his mic down to allow the audience to sing, and early single 'The Drowners' also drew a frenzied crowd response after Anderson performed much of it while hanging onto the safety barrier and greeting fans.

Disappointingly, The Guardian's liveblog was so obsessed with Kanye that it didn't manage to mention Suede at all. They should have listened to the Mid Devon Gazette, which recommended Suede as a fine alternative to a man who needed a helicopter to get on stage:

If however, you are staying in and are determined not to watch Kim Kardashian's other half, the BBC is devoting much of its schedule to all things Glastonbury tonight, so do a spot of channel surfing and you should be able to find some music more to your personal taste.

Cue a video of 90's favourites Suede who are on the John Peel stage at roughly the same time as Kanye.

Panic Manual reviewed the set from Toronto, where - apart from when those sodding flags got in the way - there was a great view:

wasn’t actually at Glastonbury, but rather, I was at home, in Toronto. Now before you question the authenticity of my review, I have assured you I have taken the appropriate measures to simulate Glastonbury as best as I can at home, including:

- Rain, it was pouring rain outside. I opened the windows so the sound of water coming down on the earth would resonate in the background as I watched the show. A sound many Glastonbury fans would be familiar with.

- I watched it on my 40 inch TV in high def, which frankly, makes me feel a lot closer to the stage then 95% of the people at the Peel stage

So, what are the advantages of this superior view?

Having access to cameras on stage, I could tell Bret and co were ecstatic about being at Glastonbury even Richard Oakes tried to muster a smile, maybe he saw a hot dog in the crowd or something.

That's just mean.

But is that really the best way to watch the gig? Is it?

The rest of the set read like a greatest hit’s list, including everyone’s favorite b-side about a heroin addict, The Living Dead. The crowd absolutely lost it when the group ended with Beautiful Ones, which had the crowd LALALALALAing so hard I could hear it through my speakers.

It was at this point I wished I was there and not my living room. Sometimes you just can’t replicate a live experience, no matter how you set it up. An encore set of She’s in Fashion and New Generation sent the crowd back to their mud filled, dirty tents happy. I would have cried if they brought an orchestra or something for Still Life, luckily that was not the case.

But if you're crying, you'd at least be crying in the privacy of your own home. I'm presuming you'd have shut the curtains first, anyway.

Getty let you embed images on blogs now, you know. Here's what people were either seeing on their home screens, or squinting at to spot in the melee of the crowd:

 

View image | gettyimages.com

 

Gaaboard were watching:

Suede aren't great but they're singling without autotune and singing their hits which puts them about 10 places ahead of that twat on the Pyramid stage!!

It wasn't all faint praise, though:

Jaysus I think Suede are hitting the mark. Have seen them at Glasto twice. It just didn't work the year I seen them outdoors but I think they might have been hitting the needle a bit too much back then. Indoors they are immense.

The Singletrackworld board was also experiencing mixed feels:

Northernmat: Suede - meh, never really got them. Lead singer bloke looks old now.
Scamper: Lead singer of suede looking old? I take it you are about 20, Matt?

Let's give the last word to DigitalSpy commenter Barbeler:

Suede have saved Glastonbury as far as I'm concerned. It was a magnificent performance that made every other band I've seen so far look like dreary amateurs.

NME Awards 2015: Kasabian, Kasabian, Kasabian

Last night was the NME Awards, which a few years back had become quite a thing; even getting televised. This year, they don't even seem to have bothered putting people picking up the prizes on the NME YouTube channel, although there's some video on the NME site.

The lack of a livestream seemed to upset some people on Twitter last night, but looking at the list of winners, it might have been wise for the magazine to try and do it in secret:

Godlike genius award Suede
Rock’n’roll soul award Jimmy Page
Best British band Kasabian
Best international band Foo Fighters
Outstanding contribution to music Teenage Cancer Trust
Best solo artist Jake Bugg
Best new band Royal Blood
Best live band Royal Blood
Best album 48:13 by Kasabian
Best track Zombie by Jamie T
Best video Zombie by Jamie T
Best festival Glastonbury
Philip Hall radar award Dean Blunt
Best TV show Game Of Thrones
Best film Northern Soul
Best music film Pulp: a Film About Life, Death and Supermarkets
Reissue of the year The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers
Dancefloor filler Fancy by Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX
Worst band 5 Seconds Of Summer
Villain of the year Nigel Farage
Hero of the year Alex Turner
Music moment of the year Jamie T’s comeback
Best fan community Muse
Small festival of the year Liverpool Psych Fest
Book of the year Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine
Best band social media Liam Gallagher’s Twitter
Best lyric “I’m wearing Win Butler’s hair/There’s a scalpless singer in a Montreal rock band somewhere” by Happyness
Best quote “Five records, ten years. We’ve earned our shot” - Sergio Pizzorno of Kasabian talking about headlining Glastonbury

Let's just take a second to look at the full name of one category, shall we?

Best International Band supported by Austin, Texas – The Live Music Capital Of The World®

Sponsored awards? Well, that's probably unavoidable. The sponsor's crappy slogan? If you must. But a registered trademark symbol as part of the prize name? Jesus wept. Or rather Jesus wept with the King James Bible copyright the Bible.

(Incidentally, the NME 'full list of winners' doesn't actually list all the winners.)

There's a lot of Kasabian and Jamie T there. Could the prize giving be any more awful?

Oh, hang on. Yes. Yes, it could. Added Gervais:

A special video, featuring the band's former manager comedian Ricky Gervais, was also shown - watch the video above. "I did help this band out a little bit in the early years," he comments. "When I told them I couldn't manage them anymore, there were no tears, they didn't beg - and that's when their career really took off."

At least he didn't do it in character as Derek, I guess.

Let's celebrate the good news here: Liverpool Psych fest; Viv Albertine; respect for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

But then... look at that "quote of the year"" - Serge out of Kasabian suggesting that they've paid their dues and it's now buggin's turn. Look at the belief that the best thing that happened in music during the whole of 2014 - the whole of 2014 was Jamie T's comeback (to a world that hadn't even noticed he'd gone in the firts place. The way that Muse still won a fucking prize.

Good lord. A magazine that has set its sights so very low might struggle to even give itself away.

NME Awards 2015: Godlike, in that they're unknowable

Congratulations to Suede, winners of this year's NME Godlike Genius Awards.

You can tell that NME considers Suede to be geniuses, given that they're always on the cover.

Oh... that they have had the cover as recently as, erm, 1996.

To be fair, last year's winners, Blondie, hadn't got a front page from NME since 1986, but normally the genius being celebrated by awards is also celebrated by being given cover features - Johnny Marr had been on the front cover two weeks before he picked up the prize in 2013; as had Noel Gallagher in 2012. 2011's Dave Grohl had been part of a shared cover on the first issue of the year - but it had been four years since the Foo Fighters had got a stand alone page one. They did get two further covers in 2011, though.

It'll be interesting to see if we're about to be hit by a wave of Suede pictures on the newsstand. I'm not holding my breath, mind.

What the pop papers said: Bernard Butler

We find ourselves at the end of a slightly underwhelming BBC-mandated 20th Anniversary of Britpop (marking the point when Johnny from Menswear first said the words '... and if we bung a picture of, I dunno, a Mini or Ena Sharples on the sleeve, I reckon it's money in the bank').

BBC Four, rather than showing the old compilation of Britpop performances at the BBC with the introduction from Damon Albarn, edited a new set of Britpop performances together, and slapped the old Damon Albarn intro on the front. Still: Pulp meeting Trev and Simon.

In the end, though, it was just a further coagulation of the Britpop narrative: John Humphrys in front of the Blur and Oasis logos, announcing a state of permanent warfare, forever.

Which is a pity, as by now you'd hope they'd be finding space to tell some of the more interesting stories of the time.

Like the acrimonious Suede split - which did get touched on, accidentally, on one of those late-night repeats from the Evening Session this week.

It's worth spending a little bit of time digging back into that awkward period. John Mulvey's interview with Bernard Butler from the NME in 1998 gives just a flavour of what went wrong:

It was around this time, probably, when Bernard starting doubting himself. Even today, you can see a potent and battling combination of confidence and shyness in his character: sure of his own gifts, but reluctant to express himself. Surrounded by people telling him he was wrong when he wanted to expand the band's musical parameters, struggling with a producer (Ed Buller) who he disagreed with over everything, alienated from a band he had nothing in common with something had to crack... Him.

"I don't necessarily think that a nice personality makes a nice record. There's a lot of bastards around that make great records, and that's the one thing that kept me going after Suede, because they trashed me so much personally, saying so much bullshit.

"It was really cowardly to do it when they knew I wouldn't answer back. They knew I'd flip and I did, I pissed off to France 'cos I couldn't hack it. I cried a lot, because it really hurt. I've got a lot of good memories of Brett and it really f--ked me up that I never said goodbye to Simon. The last time I was with Simon we were getting stoned, having a nice time, having a laugh like we always did. Next minute he's saying I should have my head chopped off or something, I should be put down like a dog."

"But I just said to myself, 'They'll get through it, just don't answer back'. You can't answer back when someone's calling you a wanker. What do you say? 'I'm not a wanker! I'm alright!'"

Bernard, bravely, rose above it all, and always carried that regret that he never got to say goodbye to Simon. Can you explain some more about how you rose above it, and - I dunno - maybe try to show Simon he was wrong to be so rude about you, Bernard?

[Were you] a control freak?

"No. I wasn't a control freak and never have been."

If you were, you wouldn't have Ed Buller produce the records?

"Right. Exactly. I tried to stop him making 'Stay Together' and then I tried to stop him making 'Dog Man Star'. No-one would let me. So, at the end of the day, that's why I left. There were lots of bad vibes between me and Brett and stuff, but they'd always been there. He was going off in one direction, shooting off as this star, and I was shooting off as this songwriter somewhere else. Unfortunately we were going totally the wrong way.

"At the end of the day, I was with the wrong people: I had the wrong manger, the wrong record company, the wrong road crew, the wrong band... I didn't think the drummer was very good, can you imagine what that was like? Simon Gilbert, the rock star drummer in Suede, I think is very average. Mat Osman: he's not a great bass player, he should've been Jeremy Paxman, he should've been reading the news. He should never have been a bass player 'cos he's just a theorist.

"Those are my biggest problems: standing there with a whole set of ideas about what I wanted the record to sound like and I wasn't allowed to say them. I'd have this great idea about what the hi-hat should do in bar four, but if I said it I'd piss off the drummer. There were times when I remember Simon taking his drums and throwing them down the stairs saying, 'I'm not being told how to play the drums'.

Oddly, Bernard would be later surprised to discover that Simon said some negative things about him.

All a long time ago, and bridges have sort-of-been rebuilt since then, of course. We were all much younger.

But the stories have got to be worth hearing, more than seeing that rack of Country House next to the rack of Roll With It in HMV for the 33,000th time?

Glastonbury 1993: Suede

Let's take a quick journey back through - ulp - twenty years, and dip our beaks into Glastonbury 1993. From an age when it wasn't all filmed and streamed...

First up, here's Suede doing Moving, over a backdrop of a photo of people:



Try also:
The Orb
Belly
Lemonheads
Mega City Four

[Buy: Suede - Suede]

Also apologising: Robbie Williams

Brett Anderson said something relatively uncontroversial about how in the 1990s, record labels were churning out boybands:

"There has always been cr*p pop music.

I remember when we had all the crap boybands in the 90s — stuff like that has always been around.

The lack of money in the music industry created a crisis.

Record companies don't have the resources to take a gamble, so these pop stars are created by committee."

I think you'd see the point - A1, Blue, 5ive. You could do a list.

Obviously, not everything that came from the conveyor belt was bad - in the same way that some things on sale in Tesco are actually quite toothsome. And it was twenty years ago, so who could possibly get upset?

Step forward the biggest battery hen of them all, Robbie Williams to speak up for the factory farming:

NOW THIS WAS AT THE HEIGHT OF WHAT WAS BRITPOP AND MAINSTREAM INDIE.

RECORD COMPANIES DON'T/DIDN'T HAVE THE RESOURCES TO GAMBLE?

I THINK NOT …

ANY QUARTER-DECENT 3 CHORD KNOBHEADS COULD AND DID GET A DEAL IN THE 90'S ….

I WON'T NAME NAMES COS IT WOULD BE UNFAIR ON

ECHOBELLY, SHED 7, SYMPOSIUM, MENSWEAR, SLEEPER,
HURRICANE NUMBER 1, RIDE, THE BLUETONES (APART FROM THAT ONE SONG),
OCEAN COLOUR SCENE (APART FROM THAT ONE SONG...HANG ON NAH NOT EVEN THAT SONG)
NORTHERN UPROAR, CHAPTERHOUSE, CURVE, SALAD, ADORABLE, CUD, SPACEHOG,
KULA SHAKER, THE AUDIENCE, POWDER, KING MAKER, GENEVA (SUB-SUEDE - CAN YOU IMAGINE?)

-

SHOULD I GO ON? COS I CAN AND THEY SURE FUCKING DID

THERE WERE A FEW SPECIAL INDIE BANDS THEN JUST AS THERE ARE IN EVERY GENERATION ….
AND JUST AS SOME POP BANDS ARE USELESS, SOME ARE MAGNIFICENT IN EVERY GENERATION
I FEEL SORRY FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ARE TOO BIGOTED TO APPRECIATE THE LATTER

THE WORLD'S A LOT MORE EXCITING WITH A ONE DIRECTION IN IT

AND MORE HEARTS WILL GENUINELY RACE AT A NEW 1D ALBUM
THAN THEY EVER HAVE OR WILL AT ANY SUEDE ALBUM IN ANY TIME PERIOD

SORRY ABOUT THE TRUTH

There's something of a major leap from Brett saying "some boybands were crap" to Williams glossing this as Brett dismissing pop in its entirety.

And I'm not even going to start pointing out that a man who cannot see the difference between, say, Kula Shaker and Adorable probably shouldn't be commenting about music at all.

Or that Williams makes a schoolboy error of actually proving Anderson's wider point - yes, more people will be excited by One Direction than by Suede, precisely because that's where the music industry shoves its investment.

Or that Williams' defeated shuffle back to Take That, tail between legs, is an example of Music Industry Attitude in sixty-foot high letters: 'why do something interesting and new when you can shake cash out of the same-old, same-old'?

Let's just skip to the damage limitation post from a short while later:

ON CLOSER INSPECTION RE MY LAST BLOG
IT WOULD APPEAR THAT I'VE GONE OFF ON TANGENT NOT ENTIRELY
CREATED BY MR BRETT ANDERSON OF POP COMBO SUEDE

IT WON'T BE THE LAST TIME THAT THIS HAPPENS
AND IT FELT GOOD TO GET IT OFF MY CHEST

THANK YOU BRETT… SUEDE'S NEW ALBUM BLOODSPORTS OUT NOW ….
IT'S GOOD TOO…

Yes, a multimillionaire really, really needed to spurt a little bile into the faces of the members of Symposium. I can see how their low-twenties chart career must have been eating away at you for the last two decades.

What comeback excited people?

So within a twenty-four hour period, David Bowie, Suede and Jimi Hendrix all came back from the dead with new singles.

Which comebacks excited people? Google Trends, can you help us?



Sorry, Brett. Sorry, the Estate Of The Late Mr Hendrix.

1993 all over again: 4 - Suede

4. Suede - Animal Nitrate

This nearly didn't make it to number four. It nearly didn't make it to a singles release at all, as Brett Anderson wanted Sleeping Pills to be the single.

From 2012, it might look like NME had made a bold decision in choosing Suede - outsiders, a bit sexy, a bit druggy. Well away from the mainstream.

But not so much - not only did the song build itself round a riff nicked from Dixon Of Dock Green's theme tune (no, really) but it also got debuted at the Brit Awards. Yes, the Brit Awards.



[Part of 1993 all over again]
[Buy: Suede]

Bowie at 65: The Man Who Sold The World

Yes, yes, you're sick to death of the Lulu cover of the Man Who Sold The World. How about Suede doing it, though?



Bowie still, I think, holds the record for the man who has appeared on the cover of the NME the greatest number of times, including the time he shared the front page with Brett Anderson. "One day, son, all this will be yours" ran the coverline. Anderson has yet to collect.

[Part of Bowie at 65]

Suede making stuff again

Tucked into this month's Q interview with Brett Anderson, the slightly alarming news that Suede are writing new stuff:

q: any new material [at latitude]?
ba: not likely, but we have started to write. it's early days but it's sounding interesting - we've been listening to alternative music from the early '80s, that's filtering through.

"Alternative music from the early 80s", eh? The Cure and The Chameleons style?

It could be wonderful. But I'll sit here with my fingers crossed until we know for sure.

The wrong Suede

The idea of Suede playing the big room at the Millennium Dome would have been cool. At the Millennium.

Not sure it works now - it has the aura of a bid to scrape in as much cash as possible.

There are also ominous rumours of a new record. With the wrong line-up. It's like going to a school reunion, and discovering only supply teachers and the foreign exchange kids have turned up.

There's nothing wrong with late-period Suede. Providing you approach it as the decline of the band. Why would you go back to the twilight?

First night: Suede

Last night Suede v2.0 reformed - without Bernard Butler, in other words. And how was it?

The NME has a scrappy review:

With Bernard Butler's replacement Richard Oakes on guitar, Neil Codling playing rhythm guitar as well as keyboards, Mat Osman on bass and Simon Gilbert on drums, singer Brett Anderson led the band through a hit-laden set, though at one point the rest of the band left the stage for him to play 'Stay Together' B-side 'The Living Dead' alone on acoustic guitar.

It's accurate, but... well, you don't come away thinking "it's like I was there."

There is a setlist, though:

'She'
'Trash'
'Filmstar'
'Animal Nitrate'
'Heroine'
'Pantomime Horse'
'Killing Of A Flashboy'
'Obsessions'
'Can't Get Enough'
'Everything Will Flow'
'She's In Fashion'
'The Living Dead'
'The Asphalt World'
'So Young'
'Metal Mickey'
'The Wild Ones'
'New Generation'
'Beautiful Ones'
'Saturday Night'

A lot of the blousy numbers, then. It's a pity they didn't check to see if Curve's old wind machine was available for the night.

Live4Ever detailed Brett's reaction at the end:

Frontman Brett Anderson (pic), who has reformed the band without former key member Bernard Butler, told the crowd at the end of the show: “All I have to say is I loved playing tonight. It’s been beautiful. Lets do it again in another seven years time.”

Let's hope he hadn't actually forgotten he was meant to be doing it about, ooh, now, tonight, in Manchester.

For a bit more depth, TheDavidX offers up a bit more colour:

They played it fairly safe songwise, opening with a triumvirate of crowd pleasers that I'd count among my least favourite Suede songs: She, Trash, Animal Nitrate. But I had to admit, they were stunningly powerful. By the coda of Animal Nitrate I had goose bumps down the back of my neck and left the swag stall in Andy's capable hands to join the heaving throng.

The only songs that might conceivably considered surprises were (and I'm doing this all from memory, I'm sure the set will be somewhere online if you want cold hard fact rather than my romantic recall) Pantomime Horse, Asphalt World (which seemed a bit shorter than usual, though I might have imagine that) plus a solo Living Dead. Otherwise it was all the hits you'd expect: Filmstar, Flashboy, Heroine, Everything Will Flow (sounding surprisingly good here, always an underrated number I reckon), Can't Get Enough, She's In Fashion, etc. The only real clunker was Obsessions which the band seemed to have forgotten how to play and Brett sounded like he'd given up singing it properly after the first verse.

And that's pretty much it. Nobody much blogging about the gig in the way there would have been dozens of reviews a couple of years back - now, it's all YouTubes and Twitters.

Talking of YouTube, then, here's some squint-and-listen-hard instant video. First up, She:



Animal Nitrate:



And The Living Dead:



Finally, the lovely people at TheQuietus have turned the set list into a Spotify playlist. You'll have to provide the cheering and bloke pawing at your arse for yourself.

Bernard Butler not bothered at missing reunion

Bernard Butler seems to have assumed that people are talking about his non-appearance as part of the Suede reunion because they're stirring. It's not, it's just disappointment that the Suede reforming are the rather-good second XI in place of the original and best.

Either way, Bernard's still not going:

"It's a shame for them that my name gets dragged into it to try and stir something up, he said.

"The honest answer is that I haven't been asked to do it. I saw Brett the other night socially and it's not really something we're going to go on about. So, it's all in people's fantasies and imaginations really."

Given that Bernard had fairly solidly ruled out a Suede reunion not long ago, perhaps it's not surprising that he was invited.

You wonder how long the list of 'things not bought up when Brett & Bernard meet socially' is now, don't you?

Gordon in the morning: Suede back

You could call Suede getting back together, but without Bernard Butler, a reunion. But it's a bit like restoring a classic car to the state it would have been if it had been left at the bottom of a lake for six months. Yes, it's still the same thing, but it's not what you'd really want.

There's no official confirmation that Suede are coming up again - just rumours - but that hasn't stopped Gordon running the story as fact:

BRITPOP legends SUEDE are reuniting - for one night only.

The quartet, who injected a dose of elegantly wasted glamour to the 90s indie scene, will play a headline gig in March. And the rockers, who split in 2003, can't be accused of doing it for cash - it will be for charity.

Gordon doesn't say when, exactly, the gig is happening. Or where. Or who the charity will be. In fact, you could have written this piece solely drawing on the rumours online from over the last 24 hours.

Gordon is reduced to explaining Suede to his readership. Smart writing about Suede. It's like hearing your daughter is going to be at an event where Ronnie Wood is attending. It doesn't have to end badly, but you just can't help worrying.

Tell us about Suede, Gordon:

Led by backside-slapping frontman BRETT ANDERSON, they crushed grunge's chart domination when they emerged in 1992 in a riot of smeared lipstick, greasy fringes and turbo- charged glam rock.

Their lyrics picked over the grittier side of life, influenced by industrial-sized drug use.

The drugs eventually caused the band serious problems. Singles Animal Nitrate, Trash and We Are The Pigs have stood the test of time, and founder Brett went on to have three solo albums.

Jesus. It's like Wikipedia filtered through someone who can half remember a few front pages of Select and Melody Maker but never read the stories inside. Shouldn't Gordon at least point out it was his own arse that Brett would slap?

[You might actually enjoy: the Suede weekend]

Managerobit: Jon Eydmann

The British tourist who died of a heart attack after diving into Lake Como last week was Jon Eydmann, one-time manager of Suede and Spitfire.

After helping Suede seal their deal with Nude, Eydmann also worked with Luke Haines and The Auteurs before moving on to an A&R role at Fire Records. Here, he worked with Spacemen 3, Libido and Novocaine. More recently, he had been promoting club nights in London, while working as a chef.

It's still not entirely clear how the 41 year-old came to have a fatal heart attack in the lake. He was on holiday at the time.

[CORRECTION: Press reports of Jon's death identified a boy at the scene of the accident as Jon's son; I've been asked by his family to correct this. My genuine apologies to all concerned for compounding the error in the original reports.]

Twittergem: Hjasnoch

Bit like Suede and Richard Oakes isn't it? "Smashing Pumpkins to hire a 19-year-old drummer?" link

- @hjasnoch

Bernard Butler: I hate you, Britpop reunions

Bernard Butler is as angry as a wasp in a sweetshop window with all these Britpop reunions:

"There's an awful lot of Britpop reunions going on at the moment and I find it embarrassing personally.

"I think it's got no relevance to what's going on at the moment."

Mmm. It;d be much better for the kids to listen to something of the moment like, erm, Duffy, right?

"I've never had an offer to do anything as Suede.

"I'm obsessively opposed to nostalgia. I hate the idea of it. It doesn't work. And it doesn't interest with me at all.

"What's important is not what I did last week, it's what I'm going to do next week. I made great records - I love them. My kids play them now. But that's for them and everyone else."

The key words, of course, are "as Suede". What with The Tears being completely different, and all.