Brett Anderson – London Shepherd’s Bush Empire

January 22nd 2009

The last time I saw Brett Anderson he was fronting Suede on the Coming Up tour.  He swaggered on stage joining his band (everyone dressed in black) and delivered a set of songs which rode the crest of the Britpop wave which he had helped to kickstart. He pranced, he clapped, he put his foot on the monitor and sang songs about sex and drugs and the urban, working class world he inhabited.

Since then a lot of water has passed under his bridge; drug addiction, the break up of his band, death and the release of three solo albums in as many years, generally to critical and commercial indifference.  His solo output has been a much more sombre affair than the majority of Suede’s, preoccupied by death and broken relationships and on his latest LP, Slow Attack, the terrible beauty of nature. With this in mind I’d expected a much downbeat Anderson.  Although not quite as lively as 15 years ago, after sauntering onstage dressed in his trademark funeral apparel to join his band (piano, cello, guitar, bass, drums) his fringe flops, his hip sway and his tambourine shakes once more.

Opener ‘Hymn’  is breathtaking, Brett croons over minimal piano. When the band join in for the bass heavy crashing swells of the chorus the sound is immense, like waves crashing on a lonely beach. Two of the more pop songs from Slow Attack follow, (’Wheatfields’ and ‘Hunted’) which are nice but don’t have the same impact as the opener, if anything they sound a little MOR.

With ‘Frozen Roads’ and ‘Leave me Sleeping’ he returns to a more poetic, abstract style. On the latter, a moving piano ballad, he dreams of being a child again, reunited with his now dead mother.  For those only familiar with his former band’s radio hits the emotional starkness of these songs might come as a surprise but there were many of these dark ballads lying in wait on Suede’s B sides and album tracks (’The 2 of Us’, ‘The Living Dead’)  which had more in common with Nick Cave or Tindersticks than with their Britpop contemporaries and it’s a style Brett has increasingly pursued with his solo records.

The set continues with songs from Slow Attack, the band making up for the absence of the woodwind section which appears on most of the album by rocking them up a little, particularly on ‘The Ashes of Us’, where the guitarist gives us a Bernard Butler-style guitar workout.

We’re 10 songs in before any songs from Mr Anderson’s first two albums get an airing.  The band leave the stage and Brett delivers a solo rendition of ‘Clowns’ on acoustic guitar after which he quips “don’t worry, that’s the last time I’ll pick up an instrument tonight, I’ll leave it to the people who can really play.” Although more than competent as a guitarist, Brett clearly views himself as a singer and understands the emotive force that a vocal can have. Tonight his voice is in fine fettle with his singing style closer to the ballads on Dog Man Star than the camp, Bowie-esque screech found elsewhere in the Suede back catalogue.

With ‘Funeral Mantra’  Brett’s lyrics are at their darkest. “We kneel before the open grave and light the candles with our pain” is a million miles away from the Britpop party, and is the kind of song Nick Cave might write on a rainy day.

‘Love is Dead’, a mix of Morrissey and Suede’s ‘Stay Together’ illustrates why many critics panned his first record; it’s essentially a less inspired retread of his work with Suede and The Tears.

‘Song For My Father’ and an encore of ‘Back To You’ wind up the set and as the musicians leave the stage and the audience drift away into the rainy night it seems that Brett Anderson is enjoying a new freedom away from the glare of public expectation and Radio 1 playlists. This exile seems to have enabled him to more fully explore the darker subject matter which he touched on in his earlier work, writing in a way he hasn’t for years. Although onstage he may come across as being more at ease than ever, Brett Anderson is clearly a man beguiled by the dark side of life.