Suede, Rock City, Nottingham

First up tonight are Nottingham's own Bloodworm who were invited onto the whole of Suede’s massive tour by Suede’s guitarist Richard Oakes after he was so impressed when he saw them play. So, it’s a home coming for them and I can vouch for Oakes’s judgement because they are excellent. Exactly my sort of thing, very gothic, very The Cure at times and with a singer in George Curtis who maybe wants to be Andrew Eldritch. 

So where have I been for the last 37 years? That’s a good question because Suede were formed in 1989 and here I am at my first ever Suede gig. How is that forgivable? 

The thumping intro to 'Disintegrate' starts the show and is quickly followed by two others from the new album 'Antidepressants' signalling to those who didn’t already know that the Suede of 2026 are just as good, if not better, than the Suede of the 1990s. Tonight’s audience, who sings all the new songs back word for word, clearly agree. 

 

Then it’s 90s time as they mix it up with the old classics of 'Trash' and 'Animal Nitrate'. From there we get an impressive foray through nine of their ten albums and they even throw in a brand new track 'Tribe'. 

What is even more impressive is that every night on this tour has been unique. With each night throwing up at least one track that hasn't been played anywhere else on the tour as they play some of their lesser known material. Tonight that is 'He's Dead' (a b-side from 1992), 'Down' (off 1999's 'Head Music') and the exquisite 'For The Strangers' (off 2013's 'Bloodsports'). Two of which I'd never heard before and one I'd rarely played. 'For The Strangers' is such a belter that it's now permanently on my Suede playlist. 

I also wasn’t quite aware of quite just how good a frontman Brett Anderson was as he takes us deeply into his world, or ‘Suedeworld’ as he passionately calls it. I'm sure that is all old news to everyone else but please forgive the newbie here. 

He is a man seemingly with constant energy and perhaps a knee brace, which he probably needed the way he bounced around the stage relegating the rest of the band to the margins to give him room. Only bass player Mat Osman dares to occasionally come to the front of the stage. Probably knowing that Anderson will soon have vacated the stage completely and jumped into the crowd, which he duly does. Towards the end of the night, he even dispensed with his microphone and still managed to reach every corner of the venue with his voice. 

While obviously very aware of their earlier material, I only recently became a fanboy when I stumbled across their excellent 2022 album 'Autofiction' with which I because entranced before being just as thrilled with last year's 'Antidepressants'. So, the highlights for me are the likes of ‘She Still Leads Me On’ from the former and the mesmerising ‘June Rain’ from the latter. 

From those albums I have started to work backwards towards their 1990's heyday, having discovered a band whose new music is, as I said earlier, probably better than the records that brought them to prominence in the first place.  

But those oldies have their place as the closing trio of ‘So Young’, ‘Metal Mickey’ and ‘Beautiful Ones’ demonstrates and threatens to take the roof off Rock City. 

They send us home with a solitary one song encore, another belter from 'Autofiction' namely ‘The Only Way I Can Love You’. Quite a night.

Maxïmo Park, Rock City, Nottingham

 Supported by Art Brut

Well, look who it is. Art Brut again. They are clearly still stalking me, not that I mind, and it has actually been five years since I last saw them here, supporting The Subways, and it was way back in 2007 when they last took the stage here with Maximo Park. We have had numerous collisions in other venues in between, some of which have even been deliberate. 

The songs, as always, remain largely the same and the stories between them largely the same with Eddie Argos still telling us all about his brother but they remain just as entertaining as they are odd. 

Something else that remains largely the same is Maximo Park’s Paul Smith, the man never ages and his enthusiasm never dims. Tonight, he and his band, bring us a huge 20th birthday party for ‘A Certain Trigger’, their debut album. 

 

They treat us to 12 of the 13 songs on the album starting with ‘Signal & Sign’ and ending of course with ‘Apply Some Pressure’ via their debut single 'The Coast Is Always Changing' and all the others with a couple held back for the encore. 

We don’t get the full album because 'Now I'm All Over the Shop' and 'Once, a Glimpse' are being rotated and tonight we get the latter. Instead, there’s the rare playing of ‘Fear of Falling’ which was the B-side to ‘Apply Some Pressure’ and which was apparently recorded at Confetti’s studio in Nottingham. Just one of the main anecdotes he gave us between songs. 

There is a disturbance four songs in during ‘My Velocity’ (yes, other albums are available) that sees two kicked out for over aggressive moshing. ‘My Velocity’ is, appropriately, a song about resistance. 

They leave us with the most exquisite of encores. It started with the magnificent ‘Acrobat’, all dramatic and spoken word, before ‘Books From Boxes’ and ‘Going Missing’ finished the night on a high. 

Only one person loved the night more than the crowd and that was Smith himself. Smith seemed genuinely surprised and touched by the reception the band got. So much so that I didn’t think he was ever going to leave the stage as he lingered long after his band mates had departed.