Kindred spirits since subverting the mainstream in the early 90s, Suede and Manic Street Preachers were bound together by their separate visions of working-class glamour: Suede with an artful, decadent indie-glam sexuality, the Manics with a literary, politically radical through-line from classic rock.
Now 30 years since they first toured together, it’s not just friendship that has endured. The penultimate night of a co-headline tour in the glorious outdoor scenery (if somewhat muted sound) of Alexandra Palace Park showed two bands in vital form.
A joint gig like this might suggest a cosy night of packaged nostalgia, but a friendly rivalry summoned the best from both. Manics were first up in the 7pm blazing sun (the order of appearance has rotated all tour), and if the majority of their career has been an internal push and pull between commerciality and contrarianism, the former has emerged victorious. Shorn of much of their erstwhile angst, this was the Manics at their anthemic, communal best, a band in search of uplift and connection that was duly reciprocated by the crowd.
Still the only group that will pepper crowd-pleasing choruses with big-screen images of striking miners – as they did on the epic proletariat anthem “Design for Life” – and quotes from JG Ballard, they began with 1992’s Pistols-meets-GnR “You Love Us”: once a sarcastic challenge to the doubters but long since a statement of fact. Frontman James Dean Bradfield, still in possession of a bellow that can move mountains, pulled out his best guitar God moves and bassist Nicky Wire, white-jacketed and blue-mascaraed under his sunglasses, contributed his own repertoire of poses.
With fellow Welsh artist The Anchoress, resplendent in pink suit that even outdid Wire, adding her wonderfully searching voice to 1992’s bittersweet feminist ballad “Little Baby Nothing” and 2007’s stop-start “Your Love Alone is Not Enough”, the mood was constantly big hearted: 1993’s “La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)” with its a capella intro had never sounded more joyous; vintage classic “Motorcycle Emptiness”, a song they’ve done 1 ,000 times, never more majestic. Wire dedicated “Kevin Carter” to the “immense intelligence and esoteric beauty” of former guitarist Richey Edwards, who disappeared in 1995; the instrumental mid-track breakdown sounded like it was rattling from the middle of the earth.
“Suede are going to give you fire” Bradfield said before the elegiac “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” soared the Manics’ set to a conclusion, and he wasn’t wrong. Suede’s post-2010 reformation has been one determined, elongated riposte to their apathetic late 90s collapse, with frontman Brett Anderson in particular tunnel-visioned into avoiding a repeat. It’s made their music ever forceful, and their live shows spectacular.
After sizing up the crowd during opener “Turn off Your Brain and Yell”, a dark, rummaging track from 2022’s Autofiction, Anderson sprang into life with 1996 smash “Trash” and never gave up: a constant, captivating, feral presence pulling out his best, long-since honed moves (jumps, squats, thrusts, arse wiggles, thigh slaps); during the lolloping glam of “The Drowners”, he made the first of several forays into the crowd where he was inevitably mobbed.
Behind him the band were reliably tight yet thrilling, adding a sense of danger to the deathless “Animal Nitrate” and the driving speak-sing post-punk of brand-new track “Antidepressants”. They piled through the 90s classics (“So Young”, “Metal Mickey”, “Beautiful Ones”) but it wasn’t all gale force: a beautiful hush descended for a magnificent take on melodramatic ballad “Still Life”, one of their very best; suburban anthem “New Generation” with its very Andersonian lyric of platinum spires and telephone wires, took on a lovely new poignancy against Ally Pally’s backdrop of the London skyline at dusk.
“I’d like to thank the Manics for they being such lovely boys,” Anderson said, capturing the mood of camaraderie that was felt across a triumphant night.