Edinburgh Castle holds a series of events each summer and this year they are showcasing the likes of Suede, The National and JLS amongst others.
Tonight is the turn of joint headliners Muse / Manic Street Preachers and on this occasion Suede will open the bill as the bands take turn about for the positioning on the bill.
Suede and The Manics were big players of the ’90’s with both producing massive hits and playing to stadium sized crowds. Although not a stadium, Edinburgh Castle esplanade is transformed into a decent sized arena with the imposing Castle as a back drop to the rear of the stage.
The show was long sold out and the queue of fans lining the street at CastleHill and Johnston Terrace was 10 deep and many, many metres long. As the fans queued for the right (and fight) to occupy front of stage they were treated to a late soundcheck from within the castle grounds.
As Suede took to the stage the weather gods were being kind to everyone present; it had threatened rain all day. Despite being sold out well on advance of the show, Brett Anderson and his Suede compadres were greeted to loads of empty seats which, considering it was a dual headliner show, kinda deflated the atmosphere. In fact, Brett had coax the crowd into life as the set went on… it remained flat for almost the full set.
The Suede lads, despite the flat crowd, were on fire with Anderson giving it everything as he strode around the stage and towards the rear of the set list he got his rewards. The crowd burst into life when Brett left the stage and entered the crowd… “Almost there!” he screamed and almost there was as good as the crowd got sadly.
All the hits were there as the experienced band flawlessly took the fans through their journey of uptempo darkness. It is an art, in itself, to have the knowhow of putting such dark lyrics to danceable music…
The backdrop at stage rear read ‘TRASH’ but Suede were anything but Trash. They were energetic and with a really crisp and clear sound it made for a cracking gig. The rest of the stage set was simple and did nothing to distract from the quality on show. Some bands rely too much on big screens, videos and other tech and it can be a distraction; tonight was spot on.
‘Saturday Night’ and ‘Beautiful Ones’ were the standout tracks of the evening with the latter closing out the show.
Next…
‘You Love Us’ is quite a statement but, on this occasion, fully justified as the Manics breeze on stage and immediately fire into the set with energy. A great start that was followed by another biggie with ‘Everything Must Go’.
The set progressed with one hit being followed by another until even non Manics fans would have had to admit they knew more than one song! The Manics tunes were always there, even just playing an ear worm in the background of your life.
The powerful vocals of James Dean Bradfield dominated the arena as, yet again, the sound was crisp and clear. The sound was up there with the best to be found today; some engineers are still going for volume to the detriment of the nuances of the sound… the engineers on duty tonight are to be applauded for their know how and decision making.
‘If You Tolerate This…’ closed out the majestic show possibly as a cry out against what is happening in the world right now. Or maybe just because it’s a banger!!
Photographs and Review by John Brown
