If you're reading this, it's highly unlikely that you need me to tell you what the music of Suede or the music of the Manic Street Preachers sounds like. So, on the whole, I won't bother. Instead, I'll try and give a feel of the gig I went to in Alexandra Palace Park last Thursday night - and a good gig it was too. Even a three hour journey back home after it finished can't change that.
They're mixing up the order they go on stage during this tour (not the first they've done together - in fact their history goes way back - the Manics once covered The Drowners though, as yet, Suede have yet to return the favour) and tonight, closer to home turf, it's Suede's turn to headline. But most people are here to see both bands so, unlike many gigs, pretty much everybody is in by 7pm when the Manic Street Preachers come on.
Glorious sunshine, commanding panoramic views of London (I can see as far as the Crystal Palace Tower) behind the stage, and it's immediately into You Love Us, the Manics' most performed song ever. You can see why. It unites the audience in a frenzy of fist waving and singing along that will last pretty much all night.
James Dean Bradfield looks like a happily retired dude fresh off a holiday cruise, Sean Moore looks like an MMA fighter who'd give you hiding should you look at him the wrong way, and Nicky Wire (in a Bruce Springsteen t-shirt and pink jacket), if you squint, could be Vic Reeves impersonating Bryan Ferry on Shooting Stars.
None of which matters, of course. An opening salvo of You Love Us, Everything Must Go, and Motorcycle Emptiness is ambitious even for a band with as rich a history as the Manics but You Stole The Sun From My Heart, Elvis Impersonator:Blackpool Pier, From Despair To Where, and A Design For Life all stand out. As does a twenty second cover of Smashing Pumpkins' Today (played as an intro to No Surface All Feeling) and set closer If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next.
The highlight of their set though, for me, was Little Baby Nothing. Joined by The Anchoress (who stays on for Your Love Alone Is Not Enough) who sings the Traci Lords parts. It's a song that not only has stood the test of time but has grown in stature. Put bluntly, in its critique of the sexual exploitation of women it shows the Manics' as progressive, even woke, songwriters as far back as 1992.
Even if it is somewhat at odds with the glorious surroundings to hear a crowd of people shouting "culture, boredom, alienation and despair" into the sunny July sky. Perhaps no odder than hearing Brett Anderson singing an ode to someone having their bones jumped in their council home.
It makes for an interesting juxtaposition and Brett is on fire. How a fifty-six year old man has that much energy is something of a marvel. Svelte, dressed in black, and covering pretty much every inch of the stage (even 'dying' at one point, see photo at end of blog for the part of the gig when I thought the indie generation might be having their own Tommy Cooper moment), I didn't even mind his constant Jim Kerr style exhortations to the crowd to "sing it". Perhaps if you're playing We Are The Pigs rather than Don't You (Forget About Me) it makes more sense.
We Are The Pigs, alongside The Drowners and Animal Nitrate, are thrown into the mix early and they all sound brilliant and there's no slouching during Saturday Night or The Wild Ones either. The rest of the band are pretty much the ice to Brett's fire. Bassist Mat Osman the only original member (I reckon his brother would have been there for this one), guitarist Richard Oakes strangely reminding me of Harry Kane (though putting in a better performance than Kane has managed in the last month or so), and keyboardist Neil Codling looking quirky and proggy in centre stage as Brett lunges into, and hugs, the audience.
The highlight of their set, and the entire gig, for me arrives in the late double whammy of So Young and Metal Mickey. Both from Suede's 1993 debut and both sounding somehow completely undated and yet like complete classics at the same time. Everyone sings along to "she sells heart, she sells meat" and "let's chase the dragon" and there's just time for a run through The Beautiful Ones before the gig ends (10.15 curfew), no encore, and everyone starts the long journey home. Happier, I'm certain, than when they arrived.
Thanks to Darren for joining me (and to him and Cheryl for their extraordinary, and not atypical, largesse in getting me a ticket) and to Bee and Cath for catching up with us in there and also thanks to Aidan (who, like Sanda, I sadly didn't get to catch up with at the gig), Cath, and Bee for the photos I've included in this blog/review/whatever you want to call it. We got the culture but, thankfully, we weren't served up any boredom, alienation, or despair.
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