Britpop icons Suede and Manic Street Preachers both played Manchester's Co-op Live in a ferocious double-header masterclass that left the arena breathless. Far from a cosy stroll down memory lane, the joint-headline show saw two bands three decades into their careers refuse to trade their teeth for nostalgia.
Suede open with a frontmanship clinic
Suede took the stage first, with Brett Anderson delivering a performance that belied his age. Pushing sixty, he possessed more feral, snarling energy than five twenty-something indie bands put together, stalking the stage with a breathless swagger and whipping the microphone cable through the air like a lasso.
During a frantic, jagged run of 'Animal Nitrate', he dropped to all fours, howling into the floor before clambering over the stage to sing directly to the front row. His voice sounded richer and far more ferocious with age.
Newer cuts hold their own against the classics
Newer tracks like 'Antidepressants' and 'She Still Leads Me On' more than held their own alongside stone-cold classics such as 'Trash', 'Saturday Night', and 'The Wild Ones'. By the time Anderson hurled himself over the barrier into the crowd for an ear-splitting sprint through 'Beautiful Ones', he had the entire room in the palm of his hand.
Following that was a proper job for almost anyone, but the Manic Street Preachers simply don't do timid. The moment James Dean Bradfield struck up the soaring opening solo of 'Motorcycle Emptiness', it was clear it would be a special night.
Manics balance stadium sweep with razor-wire venom
Backed by towering screens beaming out Anthony Hopkins' poignant reminder, "Relish everything that's inside of you, the imperfections, the darkness, the richness and light and everything," the whole set was a flawless masterclass from a band still at the peak of its powers.
They effortlessly balanced the stadium sweep of 'Everything Must Go' with the razor-wire venom of 'Faster' and a wonderfully chaotic rattle through 'You Love Us'. There were brilliant setlist surprises with a ferocious tour debut of 'Kevin Carter', while Nicky Wire provided pure, unfiltered charm during new track 'Hiding in Plain Sight', getting so happily distracted tossing handfuls of confetti over the front rows that he completely forgot the words to the third verse.
There was plenty of heart to ground the spectacle as well. Bradfield stripped things right back for an acoustic rendition of 'The Everlasting', having the cavernous bowl singing back every single word before the rest of the band rejoined him on stage to steer it home to a thunderous finish.
A poignant tribute and a thunderous finish
The night's most poignant moment arrived with a spine-tingling tribute to Richey Edwards: "We may be three, but we'll always be four," preceding a blistering, confrontational tear through 'Die in the Summertime'. By the time they brought the house down with a towering run of 'If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next', everyone in the room knew they had witnessed something special.
Joint-headline tours can easily turn into polite corporate compromise. Tonight in Manchester was an absolute triumph, two iconic bands still at the top of their game thirty years on.
