Suede return to Spain this summer at a sprint: three shows in four days, in settings that could hardly be more different. On 9 July they play Barcelona's seaside Cruïlla festival; on the 10th, Pirineos Sur's floating stage on the Lanuza reservoir in the heart of the Pyrenees; and on the 12th, Las Noches del Malecón in Murcia. A major festival, a stage on the water and a summer night: the same band in three entirely different frames.
This is not their first Spanish visit of the year. In March they toured venues in Bilbao, A Coruña, Seville, Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona, selling out almost everywhere and forcing the Seville show to move to a larger room. Anyone who wanted to see them at close quarters has already had the chance. Now they return to the open air.
The reason is Antidepressants, their tenth album, released in September 2025. Brett Anderson has described it as their post-punk record, following the punk of Autofiction (2022): two dry, raw sister albums, far removed from the more orchestral Suede of the previous decade. The reviews followed suit—five stars in MOJO, which invoked memento mori; their best since Coming Up, according to Uncut. For a band more than thirty years into their career, that is no routine compliment.
That is what separates them from so many of their contemporaries. Suede split in 2003, returned in 2010 and have since released as many albums as they did during their first chapter, all of them warmly received. This is no nostalgia act living off Animal Nitrate and Beautiful Ones. They continue to write, and the new material holds its own beside the old.
Live is where Suede make complete sense. Anderson, approaching sixty, still sings while clinging to the crowd, throwing himself forward and dragging the microphone behind him. The band sound compact and elegant, while the set moves between familiar anthems and new songs without showing the joins. Three nights, three settings, the same commitment.
Three opportunities and three different places to see a band that has not learned to play with a net for three decades.