Thirty years after they first shared stages in 1994, Manic Street Preachers and Suede are back touring together. The partnership revived with a run across North America in 2022, continued through the UK earlier in 2024, and arrived at London's The O2 on Friday, November 6. With the top spot swapping back and forth across the schedule, the Welsh group took the opening shift, stepping out into an arena filled for an evening shared between memory and current form.
They started with Motorcycle Emptiness, throwing straight back to their 1992 debut Generation Terrorists. That record is currently subject to hints about an upcoming 35th anniversary announcement, and the band dipped into it four times across the performance. Nicky Wire took to the microphone early on, voicing his enthusiasm about hitting London on a Friday evening. Even with that upbeat greeting, the heart of the set remained firmly anchored to missing lyricist and guitarist Richey Edwards.
Edwards was a steady presence throughout the performance. Wire brought up his memory before Little Baby Nothing, calling the words some of the best Edwards ever wrote and remembering the period when the song came together at the Askew Road home of their late manager, Philip Hall. Wire also thought back to the band's earliest London gig at The Horse & Groom pub, reminding the crowd that although only three musicians stood up there on the platform, they still consider themselves four in spirit.
That sentiment became even clearer during Die In The Summertime. With a live recording of The Holy Bible recently released, the three original members took the stage alone for the song, briefly sending off their regular touring players Wayne Murray and Dave Eringa. Later in the running order, James Dean Bradfield introduced Wire as fighting out of the red, white, and green corner for a title match against the world. Wire stepped forward to sing Hiding In Plain Sight from their newest album, Critical Thinking, weaving in a few lines of Bring on the Dancing Horses by Echo & The Bunnymen before admitting to the crowd that evenings like this almost made him wish he had not given up drinking.
The Welsh trio kept working unexpected touches into the setlist. A snippet of Total Eclipse Of The Heart by Bonnie Tyler worked its way into No Surface All Feeling, while their former show closer A Design For Life made an appearance alongside an impromptu audience poll. Bradfield offered the arena a vote between two of Edwards' standout lyrics for an acoustic interlude, with the room picking This Is Yesterday instead of Kevin Carter. When a heckler called out for Sleepflower, an opening track from Gold Against The Soul that the band openly dislike, Bradfield responded in good humor, telling the punter precisely where to go with the greatest respect, followed by early Christmas and New Year greetings. The set finished on a communal note, with the audience clapping in rhythm to their first number one single, If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next.
Suede followed with an approach tilted toward forward momentum. Rather than resting on the past, Brett Anderson and his bandmates went straight on the attack, opening with Disintegrate and Antidepressants from their newer catalogue. Those recent tracks fed directly into the glam and punk punch of Trash, Animal Nitrate, and We Are The Pigs. Anderson patrolled the barrier and spun his microphone with his usual physical energy, bringing the hall into an atmosphere built on gutter poetry and chain link fencing.
The remainder of Suede's running order offered plenty for dedicated followers, highlighted by a batch of tour premieres. The band dusted off their celebrated B-side Killing Of A Flashboy for the first time on this outing, while Everything Will Flow also earned its initial appearance of the tour. Later on, Anderson stripped things right back for a delicate, tour debut rendition of Still Life, accompanied solely by Neil Codling on piano. The contrast between the two bands made for an arresting pairing, with one group keeping faith with their absent companion while the other pressed aggressively into the present.
