Tag: Brett Anderson

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Suede to return to York Barbican on February 7 on 2026 Antidepressants tour. New album out on September 5

Suede: Heading back to York Barbican next February

AFTER playing York Barbican for the first time in more than 25 years in March 2023, Suede will make a rather hastier return on their 17-date Antidepressants UK Tour on February 7 2026. Tickets go on sale today at yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/suede26.

Brett Anderson’s London band will be promoting their tenth studio album, Antidepressants, out on September 5 on BMG.

“If [2022’s] Autofiction was our punk record, Antidepressants is our post-punk record,” says Anderson. “It’s about the tensions of modern life, the paranoia, the anxiety, the neurosis. We are all striving for connection in a disconnected world. This was the feel I wanted the songs to have. The album is called Antidepressants.This is broken music for broken people.”

Antidepressants will be available in multiple formats including CD (standard and deluxe), vinyl (standard and colour variants), picture disc LP, cassette and as a deluxe box set. All pre-orders are available at https://suede.lnk.to/AntidepressantsPR.

The cover artwork for Suede’s tenth studio album, Antidepressants

The track listing will be: 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 and Life Is Endless, Life Is A Moment. The deluxe CD adds Dirty Looks, Sharpening Knives and Overload.

The Antidepressants tour will take in a second Yorkshire date at Octagon Centre, Sheffield, on February 13 at 8pm; box office, sheffieldoctagon.com/suede-tickets/sheffield-octagon-centre/2026-02-13-19-00.

This week Suede opened their sold-out, six-date Suede Takeover special concert and event programme, hosted in different spaces across London’s Southbank Centre from August 26 to September 19.

Suede Takeover  began on Tuesday with an immersive Antidepressants performance, when the band introduced their new album live and in the round from a new stage within the Southbank Centre’s Clore Ballroom, created specially for the show. The intimate performance was a one-night-only chance to experience Antidepressants in this unique environment two weeks before the official release.

The poster for Suede’s Antidepressants UK Tour 2026, bound for York Barbican and Octagon Centre, Sheffield

On September 12, in the Purcell Room, Suede will revisit the up-close-and-personal 2018 documentary The Insatiable Ones, discussing its highs and lows with journalist Miranda Sawyer and director Mike Christie in a live Q&A and filling in the gaps from the past seven years.

Suede Takeover will continue at the Royal Festival Hall on September 13 and 14 with two sets of Suede’s classics, hits and new music. Special guests Bloodworm and Gazelle Twin will join in September 13 and 14 respectively.   

On September 17, the band will perform in the Purcell Room in an unusual and intimate off-mic evening with Suede. The residency will close on September 19 in the Queen Elizabeth Hall with Suede’s first-ever full orchestral headline show, in collaboration with the Paraorchestra.

“It’s a chance for us to stretch beyond the usual rock gig format,” says Anderson. “We are all huge fans of the Southbank. It’s the heartbeat of the arts in London. Expect old songs, new songs, borrowed songs, blue songs, drama, melody, noise, sweat and a couple of surprises.”

Suede Takeover is a full-circle moment for Suede as they return to the Southbank Centre for the first time since performing at the Royal Festival Hall for David Bowie’s Meltdown in 2002.

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REVIEW: Paul Rhodes’s verdict on Suede, York Barbican Centre, March 15 ****

“Turn off your brains and yell,” advised a Suede T-shirt at their first York Barbican gig in more than 25 years. Picture: Dean Chalkley

TO last in the music business, you need more than talent and looks. What differentiates those still touring into their third, fourth or even sixth decade is hunger. Based on Wednesday’s as-near-as-damn-it sold-out show at the Barbican, Suede still look lean and hungry, 34 years in.

After an excellent short opening spot from Aircooled, the stage was set for a great night. From the moment Brett Anderson strode on stage, the intent was obvious.

Posting on Twitter today (March 16), bassist Mat Osman sheds light on Suede’s state of mind before the final show of their late-winter tour; “on a wet Wednesday. All-seated venue. I had the lowest of expectations but the crowd at the Barbican made it a stormer.”

The crowd had little choice! From the off, Anderson was onto them, terrier-like to “get up, get up!” It felt like he grabbed everyone by the neck and gave us a good shake. Anderson was relentless in creating the atmosphere the band needed and he succeeded, as the lower tiers left their warm seats and entered the hot house at the front.

They couldn’t have had a better view – from the start to the end of the 20th song 85 minutes later, Anderson never stopped. At 55, his skills as a frontman were second to none, and while the voice isn’t what it once was (and it was never all that!), all eyes were on him.

“That man on the stage” was in the crowd, on his back, all over and most often up on the monitors at the front, a talisman whipping up the atmosphere in another huge chorus.

One of the London band’s T-shirt slogans summed it up: “Turn off your brains and yell,” it read. Sing or yell we did, pretty much throughout. Anderson made his point emphatically: rock gigs are about coming together and getting into it.

Suede are enjoying a lengthy second spell of success. Their latest album, 2022’s Autofiction, is a direct and no-nonsense punk rock record; perfect for playing live. That album got a nod or two, but this was essentially a greatest hits set, played as if it were the first or last time they would get the chance.

What of the music? With the original rhythm section of Osman and Brett Gilbert firmly in control, guitarist Richard Oakes has matured from the stripling 17-year-old asked to fill Bernard Butler’s big shoes into this riff powerhouse, his low-slung guitar providing the crunch to most of the songs.

Suede’s music is all about riffs, rhythm and playing as a unit. There’s barely a solo and nothing that isn’t absolutely vital for the song (except perhaps for Neil Codling on guitar and keyboards, who mostly alternated between looking glamorous and bored).

It was ten songs in before the intensity abated, and then only slightly and not for long. Of the two acoustic numbers, The Wild Ones was by far the best – a reminder that even louche rock bands have feelings.

The encore of Beautiful Ones, still their finest 3 minutes 50 seconds, put the cap on the night, almost tearing the roof off. Newcomers take note, if you want to own the stage, you have to mean it – so watch and learn from these masters.

Review by Paul Rhodes