Saw two of my favourite bands in one night and it was incredible

manic street preachers and suede at alexandra palace park in london!

i have loved both bands for a while now, they did a joint headline tour across the us, then some places in asia and it was only natural they'd bring it home to the uk.  i got the tickets in october and had a countdown on my phone's home screen ever since, growing more excited by the day...  and then july 18th rolled around at last

fun fact: they also toured together in 1994!  so this is a sort of 30th anniversary thing, even though that's only been mentioned in a couple of interviews

the manics were on first, they're my favourite band at the moment so i was sort of hoping they'd close the show, to be in the dark and all that, but they picked the closing band based on the venue and suede are very closely tied to london while the manics closed the welsh dates, which makes sense.  but as soon as they put a jg ballard quote on the screen in the few minutes before coming on i suddenly realised how grateful i was suede would be last.  i was in tears in seconds!!

they started with you love us.  which is correct yes i do love them a hell of a lot.  it's such a fun track and yelling it out in time with the crowd and the manics themselves was insane.  waaay better than just air-guitaring to it in my room in the dark haha

motorcycle emptiness was the highlight for me.  james turned the mic around for the first part of the chorus and it's always amazing hearing the whole crowd just get it...

then james said "we've had some complaints that we haven't played many songs from the holy bible this tour... you get one, only one" ooohh hell yeah!!  they played this is yesterday, which i do think is the most boring track off that album but hey i'll take anything at this point </3  it was great though and i think i appreciate it a bit more having heard it live

anchoress came out to duet on little baby nothing and your love alone is not enough, she's got such a cool voice that works perfectly on those songs.  and a really cool pink suit

a design for life is probably their most well-known track and it showed, i imagine most of the people who were there for suede knew it.  that chorus "we don't talk about love, we only wanna get drunk" is impossible not to sing along to, even if you're a cynical little prick like me who enjoys pointing out how that line is not in fact encouraging ladding around but instead criticising the common view of the working class

kevin carter was also a highlight.  i didn't expect them to play it; i'd seen it on a couple of their setlists this tour but it has never struck me as a song that would be particularly noteworthy live?  yeah, i was wrong, it was sooo good.  maybe some of that was nicky's dedication to richey's "esoteric intelligence and folorn beauty" (that has played in my head quite a bit since)

a lot of their chatter between songs was really cool.  james said nicky is "currently standing at 20 feet tall" - when the stage was being set up someone came out to test nicky's bass and i heard a conversation between two people behind me: "why is that bass so low that can't be comfortable" "because the bassist is about 9 feet tall" - and he also said nicky is slaying.  which was true but i don't think he knows what that means to the younger fans haha.  james also mentioned sean breaking his keyboard which made him switch to guitar instead, a manics history point that isn't mentioned enough i don't think

ending the set with if you tolerate this your children will be next was absolutely expected and still it blew me away...  that's one of their most successful songs along with a design for life but i have never quite 'got it'?  or at least it doesn't stand out as much as a lot of their other songs.  but hearing it live was another level, made me feel like i might float off into the distance...  james said "enjoy suede, they're gonna give you hell", nicky did a little twirl with the mic stand and then it was suede time!!

they're still the best live band i've ever seen.  this is my third suede show, the first was a tiny place as an autofiction release show, then a mid-size venue, then a massive field - i feel like i have experienced every side of suede now.  and every side of suede is high-energy, energetic, you-will-sing-along and it is amazing!!  brett simply does not stop moving, it's hard to take your eyes off him!

suede opened with turn off your brain and yell, a pretty good instruction for what we were all doing anyway.  at one point brett said autofiction is their best album.  i'm not entirely sure i agree but every time i hear songs from it live i do think it absolutely holds up to lp1 and dog man star.  though, the singalong for trash was.  incredible.  because hell yeah, all suede fans are in fact the lovers on the streets and the litter in the breeze!

they played all the classics off lp1 - animal nitrate, the drowners, metal mickey and so young.  all of which are some of my favourite songs and as expected they were all amazing.  during the drowners brett hopped off the stage and climbed into the crowd, i could see some of the security people on the screens looking on like "cmon we don't need this".  he wandered along the barrier a lot in a few of the songs...  maybe he'd just ran around the stage enough and got bored haha.

brett said at one point suede are like that kid at school with no friends that their parents worry about, but they have one friend in the manics.  i love that so much.

still life was unexpected, i'm pretty sure it's the first time they've played it in a while or at least the first time on this tour.  that's such a pretty song, and gave everyone a bit of a break from yelling quite so hard.  thanks!  another highlight was saturday night, which started with brett teaching us all the chorus so he could turn the mic around and let the crowd sing it.  same sort of thing as motorcycle emptiness - always such a good feeling!

suede played their new track antidepressants as well.  i've seen a few clips of it from random people recording it at recent shows but actually hearing it in decent quality was something else!  i'm very excited for their new album if it's going to sound like that.  i went with my dad who likes both bands but isn't completely deranged about them and he seemed surprised i knew that song already haha

they also played filmstar?  which i was fairly sure the band don't like all that much but i'll take it, i absolutely love that song and it's one of the first that got me really into suede!  same with we are the pigs and new generation...  new generation (and the manics' no surface all feeling...) has been in my head ever since.

and then they closed it with beautiful ones, dragging the la-la-la bit on for a while before saying goodnight and then that was it, i can't imagine any experience better than those few hours.  all downhill from here!

a few pictures i took!  as a fan of living in the moment i take pride in how bad these are

pretty good view even from like halfway back!!  and a nice lookout over london too

little baby nothing with the anchoress

trash!

aaand filmstar

i also got these two shirts!

the useless generation one has the manics' old logo on the back too!  my dad got one of the tour shirts and i will be stealing it

my review: 5 stars i am a new man 10/10 would cry over it again i love you manic street preachers i love you suede i love you 90s alternative rock and i love you 90s alternative rock bands who remain incredible while celebrating the 30th anniversaries of their best albums (go listen to the holy bible and dog man star rn :3)