Manic Street Preachers honoured Richey Edwards while Suede aired new material and looked to the future as their UK co-headline tour rolled into The O2 in London last night (Friday November 6). Check out photos, footage, the setlists and what went down below.
Earlier this spring the two bands confirmed that they would be joining forces once again – having first hit the road together in 1994, and later embarking on a run of joint North American shows in 2022 and a UK trek in 2024.
With the running order alternating throughout the tour, the Manics hit the stage first as the tour hit the capital, opening with the bittersweet euphoria of ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ – the first of four songs from ‘Generation Terrorists’ as the band continue to tease an upcoming announcement to mark their debut album’s 35th anniversary.
Pumped up to be playing in “fucking London Town on a Friday night”, the Welsh rock veterans leant heavily into their treasure trove of ’90s hit singles and took the time to pay tribute to missing former lyricist and guitarist Richey Edwards.Bassist Nicky Wire introduced early single ‘Little Baby Nothing’ as “one of Richey’s best lyrics”, recalling fond memories of penning the song at the Askew Road home of late manager Philip Hall.
Another tribute came when Wire remembered the band’s first ever London gig at The Horse & Groom pub in London, telling the crowd that “there are three of us tonight, but are always fucking four”. They then marked the recent release of their ‘The Holy Bible’ live album by performing the post-punk-noir ‘Die In The Summertime’ as a trio, without live backing musicians Wayne Murray and Dave Eringa.
Frontman James Dean Bradfield introduced Wire to the crowd as the man “in the red, white and green corner, in the title fight between him and the rest of the world” as he took over lead vocals for ‘Hiding In Plain Sight’ from latest album ‘Critical Thinking‘, including a brief cover of Echo & The Bunnymen‘s ‘Bring on the Dancing Horses’. “It’s nights like this I wish I was back on the booze,” joked Wire.
‘Everything Must Go’ highlight ‘No Surface All Feeling’ came with a brief snippet of ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ by the late Bonnie Tyler before the mid-gig peak of former set closer ‘A Design For Life’ led into Bradfield asking the crowd to choose between which of of “two of Richey Edwards’ best lyrics” he would perform acoustic, with the audience cheering for ‘This Is Yesterday’ over ‘Kevin Carter’. One member of the crowd called for the ‘Gold Against The Soul’ opener ‘Sleepflower’ (infamously maligned by the band) to which Bradfield replied: “Fuck off, with the greatest respect” wishing him a “happy Christmas and a happy new year”.
The set concluded with the crowd uniting to clap-along to the band’s first Number One single ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’.
Suede made an explosive opening with the one-two punch of new album highlights ‘Disintegrate’ and ‘Antidepressants’ before the glam-punk rush of the iconic ‘Trash’, ‘Animal Nitrate’ and ‘We Are The Pigs’ ignited The O2 as the animated and elastic frontman Brett Anderson squared up to the front rows and performed some astounding acrobatics by swinging his mic around to Olympic standards.
“Welcome to Suede World,” Anderson told the crowd, describing their universe of chain-link fences and gritty gutter poetry. Keen to please their hardcore faithful, the band surprised fans with the tour debut of fan-favourite B-side ‘Killing Of A Flashboy’.
Other surprises came with the tour debuts of ‘Everything Will Flow’ and ‘Still Life’ – the latter delivered stripped back with just Anderson on vocals and guitarist Neil Codling on piano, introduced as a fond look to the past despite being an “anti-nostalgia band”. That sentiment was echoed as they aired the punk-driven new song ‘Tribe’.
“I just want to dedicate this song to this lot down here,” said Anderson, addressing the front row. “This song’s for the insatiable ones, for the mild ones, for the quiet ones, for the wild ones, for the beautiful ones, you are my tribe”.
Speaking to NME last month, Anderson explained that their next record deals heavily in “tribes and belonging”.
“So the record we’re making now is the third in the trilogy,” he told us. “It’s going to be another punk-based record. I don’t quite know what I’m going to call it yet – well actually, I do know what I’m going to call it – but I don’t know how I’m going to define it yet. The first one [‘Autofiction’] I said was our ‘punk record’, the second one [‘Antidepressants’] I said was our post-punk record, the third one I’m going to call our ‘something’ punk record.”
He continued:“When we started writing it, it was a bit like anarcho-punk actually. That’s what I thought was the parallel, but I don’t know yet. I think it’s important to message very broadly and say that it’s a genre because it helps people understand these things. When you’re talking about a record, when you’re messaging a record, it’s got to be in very simplistic terms. It’s a very broad brush, it’s a very blunt instrument..
“Obviously we didn’t just make a punk record, obviously we didn’t just make a post-punk record, obviously this won’t be an anarcho-punk record, but it’s a broad place for people to position it.”
Other set highlights came with the epic ‘She Still Leads Me On’ being dedicated to all the mothers and sons in the audience, along with the huge sing-along closing of ‘Metal Mickey’ into ‘Beautiful Ones’.
Manic Street Preachers played:
‘Motorcycle Emptiness’
‘Everything Must Go’
‘Ocean Spray’
‘La tristesse durera (Scream to a Sigh)’
‘You Stole the Sun From My Heart’
‘Little Baby Nothing’
‘Your Love Alone Is Not Enough’
‘Hiding in Plain Sight’
‘No Surface All Feeling’
‘A Design for Life’
‘This Is Yesterday’
‘The Everlasting’
‘Slash ‘n’ Burn’
‘Autumnsong’
‘Decline & Fall’
‘Die In The Summertime’
‘You Love Us’
‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’
Suede played:
‘Disintegrate’
‘Antidepressants’
‘Trash’
‘Animal Nitrate’
‘We Are the Pigs’
‘Killing of a Flashboy’
‘Saturday Night’
‘Tribe’
‘So Young’
‘Filmstar’
‘Everything Will Flow’
‘June Rain’
‘She Still Leads Me On’
‘Shadow Self’
‘Still Life’
‘Metal Mickey’
‘Beautiful Ones’
Manics and Suede’s remaining UK co-headline dates are below. Visit here for tickets and more information.
NOVEMBER
7 – Utilita Arena, Birmingham
11 – Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham
12 – International Centre, Bournemouth
Speaking to NME ahead of their North American tour with Suede in 2022, the Manics’ James Dean Bradfield recalled their joint 1994 trek, when the Manics were promoting their seminal third album ‘The Holy Bible’, and said that the collaboration worked as the two bands “shared the same DNA”.
Last year, Suede frontman Anderson told NME: “The Manics are lovely boys and I’m very, very fond of them. They’re a fantastic band and it was a wonderful tour. There’s something very complimentary about the bands and their fans. We tessellate quite beautifully, but at the same time it doesn’t feel like some kind of nostalgic ‘90s Britpop party. We occupy similar territory, but different enough to be complimentary.”
As well as talking to NME about revisiting ‘The Holy Bible’ last month, Manics also told us about plans for new material and what they’ve been working on in the studio.
“It is a fine batch of songs: ‘Threshold’, ‘Don’t Be Afraid To Be Afraid’, ‘Recrudescence’… I’m just trying to find a thread to them at the moment that makes sense. We don’t have any problem with inspiration for songs, it’s just that the wherewithal to put it all together and release it gets harder,” said Wire.
“This is our 16th album, and that’s a lot of records! I don’t know any one of our contemporaries that has got close to that.”