Manic Street Preachers and Suede have kicked off their co-headline UK arena tour in Glasgow, with the latter premiering new song ‘My City’ and the former teasing an announcement to mark the anniversary of their debut album.
Earlier this spring the two bands confirmed that they would be rejoining forces – having first hit the road together in 1994, and later embarking on a run of joint North American shows in 2022 and a UK trek in 2024.
Each night will see the two bands alternate between who plays first and who closes the night, and for the opening night, which kicked off at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow last night (Wednesday October 28), it was the Manics who played first. They opened their 18-song set with 1992 classic ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’, before going onto 2001’s ‘Ocean Spray’ and newer track ‘Decline & Fall’.
Highlights of their set included acoustic renditions of ‘From Despair To Where’ and ‘The Everlasting’, as well as performances of ‘Faster’ and ‘Die In The Summertime’ – two cuts from ‘The Holy Bible’, which got a huge re-release last week in collaboration with Steven Wilson.
Eagle-eyed fans at the merch stands also noticed posters displaying the artwork for Manics’ 1992 album ‘Generation Terrorists’ alongside a QR code. When scanned, the code encourages people to sign up for updates with their name and email address, and also shows the artwork with the writing “18/11/26 10am” – suggesting that an announcement to mark the record’s 35th anniversary could be announced next month.
Check out the poster, setlist and more footage from their set below, and visit here to sign up for the updates.
Hey guys this was in merch area of manics suede today😳a sign up qr code thing pic.twitter.com/iEfxPR1Gg4
— 𐕣 beth ༝ (@ilovemanics) October 28, 2026
Manic Street Preachers’ setlist was:
‘Motorcycle Emptiness’
‘Ocean Spray’
‘Faster’
‘Decline & Fall’
‘You Stole the Sun From My Heart’
‘Everything Must Go’
‘Walk Me to the Bridge’
‘No Surface All Feeling’
‘Autumnsong’
‘A Design for Life’
‘From Despair to Where’ (Acoustic with James Dean Bradfield only)
‘The Everlasting’
‘Slash ‘n’ Burn’
‘Your Love Alone Is Not Enough’
‘La tristesse durera (Scream to a Sigh)’
‘Die in the Summertime’
‘You Love Us’
‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’
As for Suede, the indie icons kicked off the second set of the night with ‘Antidepressants’ songs ‘Disintegrate’ and ‘Dancing With The Europeans’, before going into ‘90s classic ‘Trash’.
Other songs from their latest album on the setlist included title track ‘Antidepressants’ as well as ‘June Rain’ and ‘Trance State’, as well as longtime fan favourites ‘Beautiful Ones’, ‘Metal Mickey’ and ‘Animal Nitrate’.
“Glasgow, we are the anti-nostalgia band,” frontman Brett Anderson said, introducing ‘Beautiful Ones’. “But sometimes we indulge ourselves just a little bit, because it feels nice, doesn’t it?”
Anderson and guitarist Richard Oakes played an acoustic rendition of ‘The Wild Ones’ on the night too, and the band also broke out a brand new, currently unreleased song called ‘My City’ – expected to be featured in an upcoming album. “We are gonna play a brand new song for you now,” the band said, introducing the track. “You are the world premiere for this song, Glasgow.”
The band have recently been hinting at a follow-up to the Mercury Prize-nominated ‘Antidepressants’, and told NME last week that they are “deep into” progress and centring on an “anarcho-punk” sound.
“It’s going to be another punk-based record,” the frontman shared. “I don’t quite know what I’m going to call it yet – well actually, I do know what I’m going to call it – but I don’t know how I’m going to define it yet. The first one [‘Autofiction’] I said was our ‘punk record’, the second one [‘Antidepressants’] I said was our post-punk record, the third one I’m going to call our ‘something’ punk record.”
Check out their setlist below alongside more footage.
Suede’s setlist was:
‘Disintegrate’
‘Dancing With the Europeans’
‘Trash’
‘Animal Nitrate’
‘We Are the Pigs’
‘Personality Disorder’
‘The 2 of Us’
‘My City’ (Live debut)
‘Filmstar’
‘Antidepressants’
‘June Rain’
‘She Still Leads Me On’
‘Trance State’
‘The Wild Ones’ (Brett and Richard acoustic)
‘So Young’
‘Metal Mickey’
‘Beautiful Ones’
The tour continues tomorrow (Friday October 30) with a stop at Leeds First Direct Arena, followed by shows in Manchester, London, Birmingham and more over the next couple of weeks.
Speaking to NME ahead of their North American tour with Suede in 2022, the Manics’ James Dean Bradfield recalled their joint 1994 trek, when the Manics were promoting their seminal third album ‘The Holy Bible’, and said that the collaboration worked as the two bands “shared the same DNA”.
Last year, Suede frontman Anderson told NME: “The Manics are lovely boys and I’m very, very fond of them. They’re a fantastic band and it was a wonderful tour. There’s something very complimentary about the bands and their fans. We tessellate quite beautifully, but at the same time it doesn’t feel like some kind of nostalgic ‘90s Britpop party. We occupy similar territory, but different enough to be complimentary.”
Manic Street Preachers released their latest album, ‘Critical Thinking’, in early 2025.
As well as talking to NME about revisiting ‘The Holy Bible’ last month, Manics also told us about plans for new material and what they’ve been working on in the studio.
“It is a fine batch of songs: ‘Threshold’, ‘Don’t Be Afraid To Be Afraid’, ‘Recrudescence’… I’m just trying to find a thread to them at the moment that makes sense. We don’t have any problem with inspiration for songs, it’s just that the wherewithal to put it all together and release it gets harder,” they shared.
“This is our 16th album, and that’s a lot of records! I don’t know any one of our contemporaries that has got close to that.”
