The concert proper began with the band walking coolly onstage to a flood of orange and red lights. Unlike in the Jakarta gig, they were all dressed in black, with the exception of Brett who was wearing a tight black t-shirt and tight jeans. They kicked right into "Beautiful Loser", with Brett assuming the classic legs-apart, singing upwards into the mike stance. The lights turned green and they launched into "Trash". The crowd was so vociferous that Brett's singing was entirely drowned out till the 4th or 5th song, when the sound engineer woke up and upped the gain on Brett's mike. Incidentally I think Trash was performed at a lower key than on record, maybe because Brett's voice wasn't up to it.

And speaking of the mike, it was subject to much abuse by Brett--he swung it like a lasso overhead on 2 occasions and threw it forcefully to the stage floor 3 times--things which really shouldn't be done to a mike! One of these times was during obsessions when he screamed "harmonica sooooloooo!!!" and threw the mike in Alex's direction.

Brett was insane, dragging the mike and mike stand all over the stage. I thought he would've used a wireless if he wanted to do this, but nope, there he was running from one end to the other, pulling the wire as he went along. Sometimes a roadie had to run out to disentagle the wire while Brett sang. Other Brett antics: throwing an Evian bottle into the audience; tossing his maracas several metres into the air and catching them to appreciative cries from the audience, and...removing his t-shirt!! He had hinted at doing this early in the gig when he lifted his t-shirt halfway to show of his incredibly toned abdominals. He kept it on despite cries of "take it off!!" from the audience. However, mid-concert, after So Young, he stunned all by pulling his shirt off, revealing an incredibly pumped and lean torso. He had an eight--yes, count 'em, EIGHT pack and well-defined laterals and generous pectorals. He was extremely lean and sexy, and did some really slick and enticing twists, turns and snaky arm movements throughout the remaining slow songs. Digital cameras were whipped out by the dozen--the authorities didn't seem to care.

The crowd was fantastic, singing every syllable of almost every song. They were especially appreciative of the "false starts" to songs such as Animal Nitrate, She's in Fashion and Obsessions. Example: She's in Fashion began with a soft beat from Simon. No-one could tell what song it was. Then Brett said, okay lets do this song. 1,2,3... and he sang the title line acapella (to the drums only), and everyone screamed. He made us sing the title line 5 or 6 times before the song began. The false starts were usually concluded by a shout of "Let's do it!" from Brett, whereupon the 'full' version kicked in. And speaking of kicks, Brett punctuated the ends of the songs with mid-air sweeping punches and flying splits. Boy is he atheletic!

Oh, and I liked the way he introduced "Electricity". "We've been doing slow songs yeah? (referring to the preceding Oceans, The Living Dead, Astogirl and Saturday Night). What do we do when we get tired of slow songs? We play some fffast ones (said in a somewhat horny way--think Austin Powers!)! GRRR! Fast ones!" The introuction to Saturday Night, however, was really corny. It was so corny I don't need to elaborate any further than to say that it -was- a Saturday night. Go figure. During the song he came off the stage and touched the hands of the people in the front row. He ended the night by announcing that "there are very few places in the world I can imagine living in and Singapore is definitely one of them". He then dedicated the last song to us all and it was Beautiful Ones, which everyone had been clamouring for since the start of the concert. We went insane.

After it was over, the audience refused to leave, instead shouting for an second encore for as long as 20 minutes. At one point it seemed the band was seriously reconsidering, because a technician came up to set up the lead microphone again to racuous cheering. Other roadies and technicians were at the side of the stage speaking down into the "pit" where the band were, deep in discussion, but in the end to everyone's disappointment it was decided that the gig should stop there. But we didn't hold it against them--Suede already gave us their all and there was little more we could ask for.

All the songs from Jakarta were played, PLUS The Living Dead after "Oceans". And the order in the middle was changed a little--I can't remember exactly but I am dead certain Lost in TV, which Brett introed as "my favourite song from our new album", was higher up in the setlist than for the Jakarta gig. May have been as early as after 'Everything Will Flow'.

Beautiful Loser
Trash
Metal Mickey
Filmstar
Everything Will Flow
The Wild Ones
So Young
She's in Fashion
New Generation
Lost in TV
Positivity
Animal Nitrate
Can't Get Enough
Obsessions

encore:
Oceans
The Living Dead
Astro Girl
Saturday Night
Electricity
Beautiful Ones