Playing your new album in full, to an audience who’ve not had a chance to hear it all yet, could be seen as a sign of arrogance or bloody-mindedness. But, with Suede, previewing their week-long takeover of London’s Southbank Centre in September, this was a triumphant statement of intent. In a month where their Britpop peers are playing entire set lists that are 30 years old, with barely a nod to the 21st century, Suede have their focus on the future. “We are the anti-nostalgia band,” announces Brett Anderson.
“We are the anti-nostalgia band”
Playing your new album in full, to an audience who’ve not had a chance to hear it all yet, could be seen as a sign of arrogance or bloody-mindedness. But, with Suede, previewing their week-long takeover of London’s Southbank Centre in September, this was a triumphant statement of intent. In a month where their Britpop peers are playing entire set lists that are 30 years old, with barely a nod to the 21st century, Suede have their focus on the future. “We are the anti-nostalgia band,” announces Brett Anderson.
The new album, Antidepressants, is a conscious sequel to 2022’s Autofiction. (Anderson reveals that both are part of a “black and white” trilogy, with part three to come later in the decade.) And, if Autofiction was a raw, back-to-basics punk album, Antidepressants is very much a post-punk affair, with nods to the Gang Of Four, PiL and the Chameleons. It’s a style of music that might be nearly half a century old, yet never sounds retro – this is a brutal futurism that’s been masterminded by the band’s neatly bearded lead guitarist Richard Oakes. He chimes over the Killing Joke backdrop of “Disintegrate”; he conjures up air-raid sirens over the “Ticket To Ride” tom-toms of “The Sound And The Summer”; he provides John McGeoch-style Banshee wails over the glam rock stomp of “Sweet Kid” and the Celtic punk of “Criminal Ways”. On “Dancing With The Europeans” he sounds like a hybrid of The Cult and early Simple Minds, while bassist Mat Osman throws angular shapes.
The insouciance of Bowie mixed with the athleticism of Jagger…
But the focal point, of course, is always going to be Brett Anderson. Where the rest of the band are dressed in black, he is in a tight white shirt that is soaked in sweat by the end of the evening. Impressively taut and thin, like a greyhound, with a fine head of hair, he is still a magnetic stage presence, the insouciance of Bowie mixed with the athleticism of Jagger. He leaps off the stage during “Broken Music For Broken People” and gets an adoring crowd to sing along to a song they’ve never heard. For the motoric “Trance State”, he is a ballet dancer, pirouetting to the floor as he robotically intones the closing lines “do not drive, do not operate heavy machinery, avoid alcohol”. His voice hasn’t changed over the years, but he can lean into his rarely-used baritone register for the verse of “June Rain” before leaping up an octave for the chorus, while the new album’s only ballad, the 6/8 slowie “Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star”, sees him crooning and drifting into his falsetto.
It is inspiring to see a band embracing the future…
This is a very intimate gig in the Clore Ballroom, a small stage in the Royal Festival Hall’s foyer, one that is usually used for free afternoon gigs and pre-show interviews during festivals. Tonight it’s been cordoned off and transformed into a suitably dark, cavernous, gothic club venue, with only around 500 lucky devotees in attendance, which allows the band to take chances. This, presumably, is not an audience who expect to hear “Animal Nitrate” or “Trash”.
Even the ten songs they play as an encore feature nothing released before 2010, when the band reformed after a seven-year hiatus. “We’re going to get in a time machine and take you all the way back…” says Anderson, teasingly, “to 2013, when the world was a very different place.” There follows a rousing version of “It Starts And Ends With You”, one of two tracks the band play from Bloodsports. There are two tracks from 2016’s Night Thoughts, one from 2018’s The Blue Hour and a full five from 2022’s Autofiction. On “Shadow Self”, Anderson stands on the speaker stacks and orchestrates the audience to sing the backing vocals as he does his John Lydon impression.
The Suede Takeover in September promises to be a less ruthlessly contemporary affair – a mini-Meltdown that sees them playing two nights in the 2,700-capacity Festival Hall, an acoustic session in the tiny, 370-seater Purcell Room, an orchestral collaboration in the 900-capacity Queen Elizabeth Hall, and a screening of their 2018 documentary film The Insatiable Ones in the company of director Mike Christie. But, where a residency like this is usually an opportunity for unabashed retromania, it is inspiring to see a band embracing the future.
Suede’s set list for the Clore Ballroom, Royal Festival Hall, London, August 26, 2025:
Disintegrate
Dancing With The Europeans
Antidepressants
Sweet Kid
The Sound And The Summer
Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star
Broken Music For Broken People
Trance State
Criminal Ways
June Rain
Life Is Endless, Life Is A Moment
ENCORE
Snowblind
She Still Leads Me On
Personality Disorder
Shadow Self
No Tomorrow
Tides
Turn Off Your Brain And Yell
The Only Way I Can Love You
It Starts And Ends With You
Outsiders
