SUEDE/GOYA DRESS

SUEDE/GOYA DRESS (St. George’s Hall, Bradford)

BRETT stands on the monitor, manicured hands on sensually tilted hips, watching the huge shadow-play on the screen behind him. While Richard picks out the opening phrases of ‘The Two Of Us’ on a Roland 500 keyboard. Then someone from the otherwise overly well-behaved audience yells “sing it in tune this time.”

Brett quirks an eyebrow tetchily. “Who said that? What’s your name?” Then dismissively “you wanna try it mate, third gig in a row.”

He stays in tune, as above him in nicotine-raw split-screen the song’s young lovers play out their monochrome trauma of anger and pain. And even when she squats nude on the rumpled bed she’s tastefully posed to reveal nothing . . .

Tonight is part Opera, part Drag-Queen Ball.

The Roadie wears a Depeche Mode tour-shirt, like he’s come to the wrong party. But Goya Dress hit all the correct addresses. Astrid sings “get yours here,” and we do. They cover an impressive range with two-girl harmonies more Muses than Elastica, from ‘There’s a Girl In Me’, through a keyboard switch, and a male drummer with a sharp penchant for tom-toms.

Until the thin white bright hopes of Brit Pop’s ‘Introducing The Band’ plays over an empty stage tuning up their ‘psychic landscape’ (ta’ Mat Osman), with only the Xmas lights decorating Simon Gilbert’s drumkit providing illumination. “Hello Bradford”, flounces Brett – the insatiable one, “I’m P.J. Harvey.” Single earring and knife-cut hair in rippled light, shipping the mike lead loose-hipped through ‘Hollywood Life’ and all the way into ‘We Are The Pigs’.

The film backdrops – dedicated to Derek Jarman – are a lure; bird-headed kids strip down a yellow car through speeding fire, then a savage ‘Killing Of A Flash Boy’ in the looped violence of a brutal subway assault. Sometimes the films even reinterpret the songs – ‘Heroine’ runs a grotesque transvestite in a body-stocking and gaudy make-up. But Suede’s theatrical presence is seldom at risk.

The anthemic bubblegrunge of ‘So Young’ is a deliberate shot at rousing a Suedehead ‘New Generation’ with Brett’s twist ’n’ clap and its lyrically style-conscious youth-fixation tasting of a perfect marketing ploy. And while the post-‘severed alliance’ Bernard Butler stage guests elsewhere with Sparks, Richard Oakes artfully reproduces his guitar licks on ‘Animal Nitrate’ like it’s part of his Community Service.

He crouches low, lost in fringe, stretching out into more personal space with the long building solo dividing an impressive ‘Asphalt World’. Until the Ziggy-voiced ‘Metal Mickey’ climaxes with Brett collapsing into the dry ice to lie prone for a long, long time.

The dramatic Brel-esque ‘Wild Ones’ goes out to ‘all the lovers in the audience’, while above Brett and Richard’s deliciously unplugged ‘Still Life’ a thin old man strips slowly naked in front of a mirror. Revealing all.

The credits roll, after which there can be no encore.

• Andrew Darlington