By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2

WHEN? Thursday 9 July, runs through Saturday 11 July 2026

Festival organisers are giving away free sombreros as temperatures surpass 40 degrees – the highest recorded for 112 years – and Suede compliment this vast crowd on their enthusiastic singing along.

• Read on for reasons including our 1st time seeing both Garbage and Pixies live

Lead singer Brett Anderson 1st mentions this during the Kate Bush-esque The 2 Of Us from album Dog Man Star and it’s 1 of many moments during this festival-friendly, hits-based set where we once again wonder at the new heights this resurrected band is reaching.

Dancing With The Europeans, from latest album Antidepressants released in Expanded form this week, is always going to feel more apt when you’re doing so outdoors, sombrero on, as the sun has gone down, by the sea with thousands of others in 1 of the continent’s most beautiful cities.

We had tickets for Brighton earlier this year which we re-sold as soon as we realised we would see them here and they immediately went for the original price, a testament perhaps to how in-demand Suede currently are.

We enjoy the Bowie-isms of slowie June Rain and if we had 1 criticism it would be that we love last 2 albums Antidepressants and Autofiction so much we’d have loved to hear more of those songs than the predominantly greatest hits that we’re gifted here.

My companion asks whether Can’t Get Enough is a cover? It isn’t but it’s an odd cut from Head Music being a genuine attempt at a hit at a time when the band’s initial efforts at connecting successfully with their audience were palpably waning.

She’s In Fashion from the same album is usually resplendent in its Duran Duran-like Eastern shimmer which it’s shorn of here making a rather odd choice as an acoustic centrepiece.

The set ends with Brett successfully persuading the audience once again to join in vocally – this time with the oh so very many ‘la’s in Beautiful Ones – to impressive effect. They’re probably the most reliably brilliant live band of the moment I think.

Earlier in the evening we saw Garbage for the 1st time and lead singer Shirley Manson tells a cute story about waking up in her hotel room earlier this day and noticing how beautiful the Sagrada Familia cathedral was and how complete it now was compared with the version she’d seen on a previous visit.

It showed just what beauty people could achieve when they worked together and it was a sentiment that resonated as the former Goodbye Mr Mackenzie star we remember from the 80s worked impressively to bring to life songs from the 90s and 00s including Stupid Girl and I Think I’m Paranoid.

We would’ve loved to have heard Garbage hit Queer not least for Shirley’s thoughts about the appropriateness of terms including it and ‘gay’ but it was not to be. Perhaps on another day.

Manson speaks movingly of her joy at opening for Pixies, a band we’ve been listening a lot to in preparation for this festival and Frank Black is in fine form although we leave a little earlier during their set than we would’ve liked as the Metro shuts down at midnight.

But we do manage to shimmy along to the muscular guitar-based bop of Here Comes Your Man before our train arrives.

Cruilla means ‘crossroads’ in Catalan and the idea of this festival is that the crossroads is the intersection where the many different kinds of music meet here.

It’s history dates back to 2005 and it’s changed a great deal since we were last here in 2013.

We’ll maybe reflect on that a little in our review as we see Talking Head David Byrne headline here this eveing.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Cruilla and 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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