By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Thursday 18 July 2024, co-headline tour runs until 19 July 2024. Suede booking until 23 August 2024. Tickets Manics booking until 24 August 2024 Tickets

SETLIST: Manics: You Love Us; Everything Must Go; Motorcycle Emptiness; This Is Yesterday; You Stole The Sun From My Heart; To Repel Ghosts; Little Baby Nothing; Your Love Alone Is Not Enough; Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier; A Design For Life; La Tristessea Durera; Walk Me To the Bridge; Kevin Carter; Orwellian; From Despair To Where; No Surface All Feeling; If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next

Suede: Turn Off Your Brain And Yell; Trash; Animal Nitrate; The Drowners; We Are The Pigs; The Only Way I Can Love You; Still Life; New Generation; Film Star; Antidepressants; Saturday Night; She Still Leads Me On; Shadow Self; The Wild Ones; So Young; Metal Mickey; The Beautiful Ones

The concept of a two-for-one deal is well understood and tonight a couple of bands who rose to UK chart-topping fame in the 90s each complete 17-song sets.

• Read on for reasons including how this was a winning combination in a beautiful location with a bargain gig to ease the cost of living

We last saw Suede at Kingston nightclub PRYZM in 2022 and here they play a sold-out gig at Alexandra Palace Park in London as 1 of 10 across the UK where they co-headline with Manic Street Preachers.

For us they are, quite simply, the best live band in the world because there is no other we would rather see. Frontman Brett Anderson was far less energised when we 1st saw the band at our favourite ever gig – Portsmouth Pyramids in 1993 – than he is now and at 1 point, song 4 The Drowners, he climbs the barrier into his audience, sings with them joyfully and then utters, we think: ‘I can’t move.’

We momentarily fear for his safety but he is hoisted by the adoring throng back over the barrier and into the pit at the front of the stage before emerging, triumphantly, back onto it.

The difference between nostalgia acts and those playing tonight is that they continue to write material that is good enough to merit inclusion in these brilliant but in many ways all too brief 75-minute sets.

This venue is on a hill looking out across the capital city and is 1 of London’s most iconic views. Of course the bands can’t see it but as a member of the audience it means the views are great from almost every vantage point and, in weather news, it’s 1 of the hottest days in what hasn’t been a great summer so far for outdoor gigs.

Tonight Suede play a new song not breaking new musical nor lyrical ground (Antidepressants) and debut a classic on this tour (Still Life) given a rather melodramatic performance in a set that has been changing throughout this co-headliner tour no doubt thrilling those Insatiable Ones travelling the country with it.

Anderson mentions the next album, current long player and arguably the band’s best ever, Autofiction, is suitably plundered and the final 3 songs of the night are an opportunity to marvel at how brilliant the guitars sound but also to join Anderson in mass singalongs. It’s easily and perhaps unsurprisingly the best set we have seen live this year so far.

It only needed a full moon to top it off. And, of course, there was 1.

The Manics play 1st and we haven’t seen them live since a wild night in 90s Cardiff at the peak of their Design For Life-fuelled popularity.

Theirs is perhaps a more intellectual proposition than Suede with wordy quotes appearing onscreen to better illustrate the thoughtful lyrics that have often characterised their best work.

A keystone is the inability of so many men to express their true feelings expressed best as: ‘We don’t want to talk about love, we only want to get drunk’ from the aforementioned Life. We think some of their best work has been about empowering women, not especially at the forefront of male 90s pop, and Little Baby Nothing (sample lyric sung by the band to the guest vocalist: ‘You are pure, you are snow. We are the useless sluts they mould.’) and later Nina Cardigans duet Your Love Alone Is Not Enough.

Guitarist Nicky Wire reminisces about living in Shepherd’s Bush and 1st playing London 35 years ago to 26 people and even mentions missing guitarist Richey Edwards and we can’t but wonder what he might think of this, here and now.

Near headline sets then from 2 of our favourite bands outdoors in 1 of London’s most idyllic locations on a gorgeous day.

Suede are absolutely on the front foot and the Manics less so but together they made for a winning combination in a beautiful location with a bargain gig to ease the cost of living.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Suede and Manic Street Preachers Tickets
• Have you seen a Suede or Manics show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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