Suede went on first at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena on November 7, a night after Manic Street Preachers had opened the London date of their joint tour. Suede began with “Turn Off Your Brain and Yell,” while the Manics brought the Birmingham show to a close with “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next.”
Source: Bex Walton / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Cropped archive photograph of Suede performing at Alexandra Palace in November 2021.
The two groups played separate headline sets, with Suede on at 7:40 p.m. and Manic Street Preachers at 9:35 p.m., according to the fan-compiled running order. The O2 had listed the Manics at 7:40 p.m. the previous night. The bands carried the same billing into Birmingham, but someone expecting Suede to play second would have missed the beginning of their set.
Suede brought its last two albums into the early set
“Disintegrate” followed the opener, putting a track from 2025’s Antidepressants straight after one from 2022’s Autofiction. The two records accounted for seven songs between them on the fan-compiled list. The 1996 album Coming Up supplied four more, including “Saturday Night,” “Filmstar,” and the set closer, “Beautiful Ones.” That split made room for both recent records without pushing their older singles to a separate encore.
The evening also made space for “Stay Together,” the 1994 single that sits outside Suede’s original studio-album track lists. Maximum Volume Music, reviewing the Birmingham show, described a piano-led performance. Suede followed it with “Metal Mickey” and “Beautiful Ones,” moving from that standalone release to songs from its debut and third album in the final stretch.
The Manics kept their own closing run
The Birmingham set list for Manic Street Preachers records “Decline & Fall” and “Hiding in Plain Sight” from Critical Thinking, alongside Everything Must Go material such as “A Design for Life” and “Kevin Carter.” Near the end they played Blondie’s “Union City Blue,” then returned to their own records with “Die in the Summertime,” “You Love Us,” and the closer. The set list marks the Blondie song as a first for this tour.
The band’s published itinerary lists Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena on November 11 and Bournemouth International Centre on November 12 as the remaining stops. Where the Wombats’ anniversary format calls for a specific album in one part, this bill gives two bands their own sets. Birmingham’s order establishes what happened on Saturday, and the next venue’s running times are the place to check which band goes first.
For anyone comparing tour set lists, it helps to keep the running order and the songs in each set separate. A switch in who goes on first can leave both sets intact, while a cover like “Union City Blue” is a change within one band’s set. That is also what makes a rare tour performance stand out.
