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Suede Live at Westonbirt Arboretum June 2014

Suede have hit the road again in 2014 and have a number of concerts and festivals lined up throughout europe. This is the first time I have seen them play outdoors and although the concert was good, very good, it did not reach the heights of for example the Paradiso concert in Amsterdam,  the Roundhouse nor the Royal Albert Hall. Suede thrive on atmosphere and at any outdoors festival the music does tend to vanish into the heavens. The other minor complaint was that the set was shorter, far shorter than some other sets ( maybe we were spooled then, as they did play for maybe 75 minutes), and the set list included nothing from their new album Bloodsports. From Brett Anderson’s comments to the audience ” leave your cheese and pickle sandwiches and come down the front”, he too may have had some reservations about the audience. The age was not so young though mixed. I saw ages 0-75 there. But was this their normal concert audience? Think not. So maybe the set list was tweaked towards those who heard them in 1992. A mistake maybe. They played well and we all had a good time but a single encore of an unusual song maybe ended the concert on a flatter note than it should.

All sounds like grumbles, but actually it was a great evening and great concert. The venue was like a mini Hyde Park, with fenced off field with large stage, food outlets etc. Food was fine, never cheap at these places ( pie, nice pie for £8, beer £4.50/pint) but overall a really good venue. Easy to get to, good parking, everyone escaped quickly afterwards.

Support bands were good too, very good in fact in the case of The Hosts, a sheffield based band,and good but curious for a singer called ?Griff. The Forestry commission should be congratulated on these ventures and will I be back, yes.

Suede Westonbirt