Live at the Music Hall Aberdeen

13th March 2023

It’s a cold Monday night in March and I’m doing the 40-mile journey to Aberdeen to photograph Suede at the Music Hall. It’s only one of two gigs in Scotland as the band are out promoting new album Autofiction.

It’s the first time I have photographed in the Music Hall since it had it’s £7 million revamp so will be interesting to see how it looks.

Aircooled are the support band tonight with Justin Welch (Elastica, Piroshka, JAMC), Oliver Cherer and Katharine Wallinger (The Wedding Presents, Viv Albertine) and the album features vocals from Riz Maslen (Neotropic) and extra percussion from Pablo Cooke (The Mesqualeros).

Not known much about Aircooled, they kicked the night off with their new single Hyperproduktiv but it took me by surprise when I discovered they were an instrumental band. Usually, when photographers are covering gigs they get the first three songs to capture and tell the story of the night but, by the time we got to the second song which went on for days ,the third song wasn’t needed.

As the roadies got the stage ready for SUEDE, smoke was pumped out to the chocking fans, so I knew the main event was about to take to the stage.

I knew Brett Anderson was full of energy in his earlier days with SUEDE, so I was looking forward to seeing if the high energy was still there with the front man.

It didn’t take long for Anderson to answer my question as he opened the show with Turn Off Your Brain And Yell. He contorted his body and whipped his microphone around the stage throughout to classics like Animal Nitrate and The Wild Ones.

The crowd was also treated early into the gig as Anderson took a walk into the crowd as he sang and danced with the fans before returning to the stage to continue what was an amazing performance from Anderson and the band.  

Hits followed throughout the night as Metal Mickey, Trash and Sleeping Pills roared out from Andersons iconic voice before an encore of Beautiful One left the fans heading home happy in what was a very cold March night.