By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN? Tuesday 26 August, tour runs through 21 February 2026

Setlist: Disintegrate; Dancing With The Europeans; Antidepressants; Sweet Kid; The Sound And The Summer; Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star; Broken Music For Broken People; Criminal Ways; Trance State; June Rain; Life Is Endless, Life Is A Moment

Snowblind; She Still Leads Me On; Personality Disorder; Shadow Self; No Tomorrow; Tides; Turn Off Your Brain And Yell; The Only Way That I Can Love You; It Starts And Ends With You; Outsiders

This is not supposed to happen.

• Read on for reasons including how this was not the gig we expected or wanted

We are told in advance of this show in what is usually a public area of the Southbank Centre that Suede will be onstage at 9pm and latecomers may not be admitted.

They actually arrive at 8.50pm and open with their new album – Antidepressants is released Friday 5 September – in full. Lorde did it at Glastonbury this year and we’ve seen Suede do it once before, a decade ago in Camden Roundhouse.

Lead singer Brett Anderson says it will be the 2nd of 3 ‘black and white albums’ and his is ‘an anti-nostalgia band’.

Disintegrate was a song of the month for us in June and Dancing With The Europeans in August. Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star has the feel of an epic, showstopping ballad. Broken Music For Broken People feels lyrically very state of the nation now yet redeems itself by following the title with, we think, ‘… who will save the world’.

The earlier-than-expected start heightens the urgency of the material. Suede are calling it ‘post punk’ and to these ears it’s leaning into goth rock, not a genre we would normally tarry with, but is delivered with the vigour you would expect from a band which is currently producing its most critically acclaimed work – in its 2nd phase.

Suede burned bright on their ascent to fame in 1992 and fizzled out with their weakest album a decade later. In 2013 they returned and the 5 albums they have released since have been more consistent than the 1st 5 they gifted the world.

Anderson doesn’t say much but does offer of this 650-standing capacity venue: ‘It’s nice having you nice and close like this. I like it.’

It’s a sentiment that is shared. He’s often into the audience and for the band’s 2nd set there is no Animal Nitrate, Trash or Beautiful Ones but instead a concentration on those 2nd period albums.

Bands, generally, do not do this. The audience is ecstatic just to be in the same small room as the best group in the world in blistering form you just do not see normally from any such contemporaries.

This was not the gig we expected or wanted – but Suede are constantly challenging, moving forward and never dwelling on the past.

It was so good I’m writing this with my entry wristband still on and I’m not quite willing to take it off – yet, if ever. Antidepressants in musical rather than chemical form.

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