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Jennifer

@string_bean_jen

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Has glitter in her lovely eyes! |
Pop music, architecture + interiors, dogs, bicycles and the world through curious eyes. | 🇺🇸 in London.

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I bought tickets to this show on the strength of the guest singers - mainly David McAlmont, but they were all enticing. The show was celebrating 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust' and threw in additional Bowie hits. I had guessed there'd be a top orchestra and band backing the guest singers and this turned out to be true and very large! I was again grateful for the AC on another stinking hot day. Though the show turned out to be just over an hour, it was a lot of fun. We got turns from Peaches, Brian Molko, Camille O'Sullivan (who I'd long wanted to see, as a friend of dear Cathal Coughlan's), Nadine Shah and McAlmont. Tawiah, who was in the orchestra, also sang a song and she had a sort of Tracy Chapman style but a bigger voice. I was also taken with fashionista Patrick Wolf and thought he must have some excellent fashion designer connections who must completely love dressing this tall, elegant man. I loved how David McAlmont walked round the back of the orchestra to sing alongside the backing singers on both songs. I unexpectedly enjoyed Brian Molko's performances, especially on 'Rock 'n' Roll Suicide', where he came to the audience, running up and down the front row and aisles and taking our hands multiple times!Patrick perched on the edge of the stage in front of me and I was ready to kiss his hand, so elegant he was!I used to see McAlmont do full Bowie nights at the Hideaway with Janette Mason and this was a bigger scale. Loads of fun, lots of singing and David finally got us up dancing. Thank you! by @string_bean_jen

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4 days ago

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5 days ago

Extremely late Black Box Recorder photos and reflections from London's last heat wave. -‐--------------------In the early 2000s I really loved this band! I listened to their second and third albums a lot. I can't recall how or why I got into them. I feel like I may have been attracted to their style and glamour, maybe seen in British magazines. I don't think I clocked then that they were on Nude Records, Saul Galpern's label and the man who signed Suede! But obviously now, it makes sense why I may have loved this band so much then. But I hadn't listened to them in years, decades even. I never saw them then and so when they announced a show in the winter, I had to get a ticket. Front row, baby!The gig came round at the start of London's first heatwave of the year. The London Palladium I questioned as the right venue for them but seeing them in this over-ornamented palace of Victorian richness and with Sarah Nixey in a long red dress, I got it. They started with a song I often get stuck in my head, 'Brutality'. Fabulous! God, these lyrics, just classic BBR, so sardonic, and so easy to sing along to. After this was much of the album I don't have and don't know, 'England Made Me'. The lyrics were brilliant. I love the skewering of English middle classes, the provinces, the knife edge of boredom on one side with violence on the other. And I also love the very feminine perspective in a lot of the songs, the school-age relationships, the "fulfillment" of having a dream home, the eroticising of the English motorway system! Someone shouted out for 'Andrew Ridgeley' but alas, they didn't play that song.Sarah was just perfect - everything I thought she was based on what I could see back in printed media and online but never got to see in person. She is still absolutely gorgeous and glamorous. She's kind of like a torch singer, her persona, and so doesn't move around much. Thus, the Palladium really did suit the band. John Moore and Luke Haines moved around Sarah and Luke you could see was particularly feelin' it! I loved too how hott & stylish Sarah & John look together as a (former) couple... by @string_bean_jen

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a month ago

My final photos from my Suede holiday tour at the end of March, flying from sunny Spain to wintry Geneva + Lausanne, Switzerland.1-2: the gorgeous mid-century Capitole cinema by day and by night. What a glorious neon sign!3: Love that Swiss clock design. A classic!4: I feel like it's been years since I've seen that delightful Pathe mobile dancing before the start of a film. So it's cheering to see it at the front of this lovely building. 5: How sweet is that typeface? It reminds me of the slightly cursive font that my school used to send letters home in during my elementary school days. 6-8: Lovely buildings and colour on a sunny though freezing day. 9: A very cool light switch (I think!?) in L'Echo. The matching sink was a fab touch too. 10: Department store pomeranian pal. 11: A perfectly matching location name. 12: Staring down resigned from one of Lausanne's many painful hills dragging over a week of luggage and wondering how to get down to the train station. A beautiful sight though!13-14: The very elegant train station, including a curved deco side entrance, again with a cursive font for a sign.15-18: Inside Tibits, the vegetarian buffet holding court dramatically and elegantly at the train station. A great choice for a train station restaurant! Also, dogs can join. 19-20: The dappled sunlight inside the train station. Sparkling. by @string_bean_jen

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3 months ago

Pictures from my recent Suede holiday in Spain and Switzerland. Now: Barcelona!1-4: a walk and a cycle ride by the sea5: I was struck by the person cleaning a train at the Barcelona Sants station. You don't see people cleaning the exteriors of trains in UK stations. 6-7: Barcelona by night. Those curvy art nouveau door and window frames; palm trees lining squares.8: Posters in my neighbourhood, where I loved staying9-12: A walk and a cycle ride to the Mercat de Sants on a sunny day, with a side of the 80s-tastic Mercadona.13: What a joy produce shopping in Spain is. The labels say the specific regions of Spain that the fruit and veg come from.14-15: The Arc de Triomf + passeig16-17: The delightful artfully tiled columns beneath the Santa Eulalia metro station in my neighbourhood by @string_bean_jen

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3 months ago

***Holiday photos from my recent Suede holiday around Spain and Switzerland***I had an enjoyable train ride from Seville to Madrid and even happily surprisingly shared a carriage with two fellow fans! The scenery out the train was beautiful. The mountainous, the hills, the farmland, the rural scenes, the derelict farms and houses, all brightened by the sun. In Madrid, I barely had any time to sightsee. The day I arrived I met up with my friend Miguel and his family and had vegan Peruvian food which was delicious. But other than that, my only sights were between my neighbourhood and the ten minute cycle ride to La Riviera and then the slightly longer walk from my apartment to the train station. I always like to see station architecture, its clock, its listing boards showing you all the fascinating places you can go by train. I particularly liked the grand government building right across from the station which took me by surprise. Signs of Semana Santa were also all over the city from shop windows to billboards. I had a really sunny and lovely time in the capital city. by @string_bean_jen

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4 months ago

City and holiday pictures from my Suede Spain and Switzerland holiday1-4: structures from the Isla de la Cartuja, where both the Cartuja Center (gig venue) was, but also where the Universal Exposition of Seville was held in 1992. It's a quite abandoned area, save for office blocks and the structures designed once to demonstrate innovation. 5-7: buildings in the neighbourhood I stayed in, including a former massive artillery that is thankfully now a cultural centre8: smell those flowers!9: medical centre10: the bridge to the Isla by night11 - 17: Sevilla by night. Lots of churches, lots of gorgeous old tile signs. I particularly like the wine signs. 18-20: Leaving Seville. So hard when I was so captivated by the smell of orange and lime blossom littering the pavements. You get a bit of lime blossom in London but later in the season and nowhere near as much as this. The whole city was perfumed. It was so heady and I felt lucky to be in the city at this magical time. Blossoms, bull fighters (of yore) and Pablo Picasso boulevard outside the train station. On to Madrid! by @string_bean_jen

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4 months ago

My last show of the 'Dancing with the Europeans' tour, the 2nd last show of Suede's tour and really, the culmination of the band's album tours before Asia and festival season beckons. This was the first European show I booked way back in September when the tour was announced. We knew it would be a big gathering of international fans as it's Mike's adopted home town. It was also the smallest venue on the tour which attracted me. I was also curious to revisit Switzerland, a country I know little about and had only visited once, many years ago at age 15 with my German class. However, I then ended up booking all those dates in Spain which meant packing became very difficult as did the easy, breezy train travel I envisioned!But it was so worth it. Despite queuing in freezing, rainy conditions, the mood was positive and excitable. We read reports from the previous night's show in Milan and were worried for Brett's voice. In Barcelona, it seemed he was improving; in Milan, not so much. What would this evening hold?After a decent entry system and a quick run to the barrier, I soon found out. The stage was in touching distance and was low enough that every time Brett came over, I could see how bright his blue eyes sparkled. The set list changed rather radically. There were NO songs from the debut album and I didn't miss them! They opened with the smokin' hot perfect opener again, 'Turn Off Your Brain and Yell'. Throughout, they treated us to drug-inspired tunes such as rockin' banger, 'Crackhead' (possibly only the 2nd time they've ever played it and it's a song from the last century!) and introspective quiet number, 'Heroin'. Another beautiful highlight was Brett introducing Alice from Swim School to duet with him on 'She Still Leads Me On'. There was pure joy radiating from both of them and given the female focus of the song's lyrics, it was especially moving and powerful to have a woman co-singing the song with Brett. The encore was 'Saturday Night' where Brett gave hugs essentially to the entire front row. Now I sit looking at the festival dates, avowedly NOT a festival person, wondering if I can squeeze in a Suede top-up somewhere in Europe this summer.. by @string_bean_jen

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4 months ago

Suede's last show in Spain - ahh, if only it could last forever. Spain in spring makes for the idea queuing situation - nearly guaranteed sun, not too hot, a relaxed vibe. Razzmatazz is fairly central and has an iconic venue front. It's a converted warehouse, I think, and it had a cool industrial vibe. A lot of us fellow travellers over the last week of the tour met in Barcelona and many locals joined us in the queue. I was happy to meet a number of Barcelonans. Security staff was a little overzealous during the day, locking us into the queue, making it more difficult to lounge alternately in the sun or the shade. But we made it work! Including when the band arrived and security put up two separate sides of barriers, penning fans back. Razzmatazz is, like La Riviera, a popular club venue. Thankfully you enter on the ground level and head straight to the stage and barrier. Security and ticket scanning worked well again. Wahey! I ended up just to the left of the last speaker Brett always stands on. The stage was in touching distance - in fact Mette could lean over the barrier and touch it! So shallow was the gap for both Brett and photographers! It was the narrowest I've ever seen a gap and I loved it!After Swim School, at least 14 (!) photographers went into the photo pit and had to pass each other by standing on barrier steps and leaning back into us fans. It was quite something to see. Brett's voice was still a bit croaky so we got a slightly shortened set list but a mix of what they've typically been doing on this tour plus some rare gems including a full band EUROPE IS OUR PLAYGROUND! Absolutely spellbinding. I'll be uploading my video of that. Swoooooon. They also started the show with 'Turn off your brain and yell', harkening back to the glorious Autofiction tours that started with that howl of a song. And a Brett semi-hug and coming to my step action made up for having the worst drunken, cig smoking, shirtless meathead behind me - you were at the wrong gig, dude! But the night for me ended with the loveliest vibe outside in the street, waiting for the band, basking in the glow of the show with fellow fans in the midnight Barcelona warmth. by @string_bean_jen

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A picture perfect day. Right on the banks of the river. A perfect temperature. A mix of shade and direct sun. A pathway for walkers of cute doggies and topless men. This easy breezy queue life makes everyone so much more relaxed and the space by the river led to little groups sitting or standing and people chatting among themselves. The band arrived a bit later and we noticed Brett seemed not his usual self. Richard and Mat were particularly chatty. Tom, one of the crew, came out and chatted for quite a long time which was nice!I love meeting new people on this European tour, and getting the relaxed time to get to know travelling known fans more deeply. This vibe enables us to do so. La Riviera is a funky club venue - long and shallow with bars of palm trees in the middle. It's like some sort of slightly cheesy, 80s, La Movida-era club newly released from the clutches of life under a dictator. The security had respected our numbered queuing system and we divided up into lines of 3, at least the first clutches of fans. Bag check, ticket scan all worked but we had to run down curved stairs to get to the venue - careful! Somehow I ended up really central and with a step in front of me. The stage was so low, shallow and generally small that Suede couldn't use their usual tour set up including lyrics, backdrops and full lighting. But that meant that we were super close to the band and could see the whites of their eyes! We could early on hear that Brett's voice was struggling. Once he said finally that he was losing his voice - "an occupational hazard" - we all loosened up. He spent less time on the barrier but I got a hug and separately, to embrace him when he came to my step, during 'June Rain' and 'Trance State' respectively. The set list was slightly different tonight. I loved the additions of 'It Starts and Ends With You', 'Pale Snow' and 'I Don't Know How to Reach You'. Plus, 'The Drowners' returned and Brett came far into the crowd from the left. A perfect day with the most joyful of fans. by @string_bean_jen

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4 months ago

The second of my 'Dancing with the Europeans' Suede shows but the first of my 9 days in Europe.Now, the center is a conference center in the main. It reminds me of the venue I saw Suede in back in 2016. It's basic and on an 'island' that hosted the Seville World Expo in 1992. The island feels abandoned and separate from the city itself. Most of the attractions are faded and crumbling and the area is populated mainly by offices. Therefore, it's dead at the weekend with one Asian restaurant lucking out to get all the Suede fan food business. Queuing was mainly wonderful. The weather was absolutely perfect. The sun came out and it hit 20! We had shade, we had good moods and we met the band as soon as we went round the corner mid-afternoon to the touring buses. Come door time, the staff came to talk to us, and probably overcomplicated their explanations but we went in single file, no running ahead, no male/female security split and pat down, fairly calm staff, ticket readers mostly working. When we got to the barrier, we were confronted by the extremely high stage and the most dangerous looking Brett steps I've ever seen! While Brett came to the barrier in all the usual songs, he didn't spend as much time on the barrier I felt, as coming down and going back up was so precarious he needed to take his time. My favourite songs of the night were a full band 'The 2 Of Us', 'Turn Off Your Brain and Yell' and Brett going full Andalucian and yelping 'Hallelujah, Hallelujah' during 'We are the Pigs'. Thankfully, I've caught this on video. It was HILARIOUS. For me, the gig was great but not a favourite. The fans all around were passionate which was great but the venue didn't inspire, though it was extremely practical and without stairs - yahoo! I just heard 2 of those great songs in Paris and I again feel they're focusing on the hits for the European shows. I know how lucky I am to go to so many shows and travel and be able to afford this. I don't take it for granted. I got used to the UK shows where there were jaw-dropping surprises at every single show. But the band always put fire into each performance and they did so in Seville and for that, I'm grateful. by @string_bean_jen

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4 months ago

Sights of Paris last weekend: 1-8: Galleries Lafayette, including many cute dogs, the view from the roof terrace showing the Opera House and the Eiffel Tower in the distance, that sparkling dome and some 1960s adverts.9-11: Printemps department store next door. Paris can do a department store! I didn't find my stylish sought after tights though. 12-20: Sights of Paris including cafe life, dogs, beautiful signage and shop fronts and the stunning Metro. by @string_bean_jen

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