And this is it.

The end. The final showdown. The death of our small love.

And it was a love, of a sort. These are only songs. Only words and music. But to some us, things like this make the only difference between changing lives and saving them.

Isn't it sad that a 225 second pop song that make me want to stay alive?

We'll have to find another band and gang now, to take on the world like they did. Another bunch of hopeful, vivid young men raised on a diet of love and poison for this asphalt world, and endlessly quoting other people's songs.

Because this is it. The last hurrah for the last band that rose in this thing called Britpop. They were the first to rise, the last to go. Their dead and wounded on either side, the ashes of former hopefuls. Normally a band that burns twice as bright burns half as long, but when a band has this much diesel and gasoline sometimes it takes a long time for the fire to burn out.

Here we go, beautiful ones. Suede at the Astoria, London, 13th December 2003. The last time.

I can't believe we're here. I can't believe this is the end of the line. That there are no more after this. Tonight, for the last time, we will kiss. Tonight, for the last time, we will make love. And then she will walk out anytime she wants to walk out. The last we see of those we love is never their face, always their back, as they walk away, board the train, slide out of view.

Tonight the last I see of Suede is the same. Five men, their arms raised, one by one leaving the stage, walking out of lives forever.

This is not how it started. It started with a promise of a revolution from four skinny, underfed, hungry white boys bursting out of the suburbs - not just a band, but a gang, united of purpose, as if they were four parts of the same entity.

And this is how it ends. Five men, rounding off their greatest hits tour with a last-minute additional show at London's premier gay venue, starting at 7.30 and ending at 9.50, thrown out onto the streets long before closing time. At least, that's how it feels to me. There was so much time and promise left in them.

But this wasn't the start of the day. Next door to The Astoria, a short stagger, is the legendary Popstarz club, which, for one afternoon only, becomes a packed-to-the-rafters homage to all things Suede. When people have flown from Chicago to stand in the room next door, it's the least, the least I can do to give them a party.

So, I admit, in collusion with my cohorts from the Suede Fanclub, booked the Ghetto, and threw us one hell of a party. It's only some 250 people here, but what people. All of the beautiful ones, plenty of faces and names you might recognise if you've been into Suede at all over the past few years, plenty of people you've bought fanzines off, read poems by, seen their websites. All of us gathered for one last time.

Admittedly, choosing Suede songs to play is incredibly easy at a Suede party. They've got so many great songs (You know, it's something when people listen to the b-side and don't realise it's not the single, but a leftover) it's actually difficult to choose what comes next. How do you top "Trash“? What can you possibly play after "Stay Together“? There's always something else to do.

Frankly, I think we all enjoyed ourselves. Despite having half of the DJ booth cease working (hence the wildly varying volume) halfway through the set, we still managed to say goodbye in style and fashion. A set of Suede rarities, live cover versions, unreleased remixes, b-sides, and, of course, fantastic hit singles spun at screaming-at-the-top-of-your-voice volume for the final faithful few. And then, as the lights rise, the plaintive chords of "The Next Life“ ring out to the final few, it's time to go.

Time to go to the final, heart wrenching moment. From the opening song, Brett's plaintive plea to his departed mother, "The Next Life“, to the last - a triumphant "Trash“ it's a reminder, as if one were needed, of why Suede were, are one of the greats. Because there are so few bands that write songs like this, songs that sound like The Best Song Ever when you're listening to them, and songs that make you feel both that you are not alone in this world, and that, in this world, there are so few of us that understand that this, beauty, music, passion, glamour, is what life is all about. About making beauty out of the squalor and the boredom.

Brett's voice breaks, choked with emotion, during the sad, wordless lullaby that is "The Next Life"s coda. Around me, almost as one, handfuls of us break into the wracking sobs that come from mourning the dead. Jesus, Suede are only a band, these are only songs. But these songs are my life.

It's a defiant last stand. A finger to the critics. See how good we were? These songs say. It's your loss. Songs are wheeled out you thought you'd never hear again, and you know what, after tonight, you won't. The sprawling, cinematic "She“ that segues effortlessly into the brooding, fabulous "Killing Of A Flashboy“. The seductive, sexual tease of "My Dark Star“, and the hopeless romance of "Astrogirl“ and "Picnic By The Motorway“ unfold to reveal that not only are Suede one of the best singles bands of our generation, their lesser-known songs are not lesser in any way.

And the first part of the set, this wake, is over too soon. "The 2 Of Us“ (Bernards elegy to his departed father), and "Still Life“ are reprised for the last time. Richard blinking in surprise, as if, somehow this really is it.

Richard was the best thing that ever happened to Suede. Unassuming, likable eyecandy, Richard was just some 17 year old who happened to be one of the best guitarists in the country. If Suede hadn't got him someone else would. And he would've been Legend. He's that good. But, unlike Bernard Butler, Richard was never a guitarist who happened to write songs : he was a musician who happened to play guitar. Which means that Richard never wrote an eighteen minute guitar solo, and so nobody ever knew exactly how brilliant he was.

Without him, none of us would've been here to enjoy the past nine and a half years. And you can see that Richard isn't just Suede's guitarist, he's a Suede fan. The way he cocks his head and stamps his feet when crunching out the riffs, as if he's got the best job in the world. And for a little while yet, he has.

Especially when his hands play delicate spider trails over the end of "To The Birds“ before he suddenly, gloriously unleashes the last, violent section of the songs brutal chords. You can lie down for her all you want, Brett. It doesn't take the sting out of this final, bitter kiss.

Neither does what comes next : 14 of the best singles British pop music ever had. Just when you thought it couldn't get any better than the "Drowners“ then WHAM! "We Are The Pigs“, WHAM! "Animal Nitrate“, then WHAM! "Metal Mickey“ : in total, fourteen vicious, evil, spiky, lovely things that remind you that second-best just isn't good enough. Songs that say so much more about life than whatever you find on MTV, with their bland love songs about Big Sur and Cities and Shaking Yer Bootylicious Crazy Love in big cars. My world isn't one made of pimps and ho, gin and juice, big cars and fast stars, tight skirts and loose women. My life is about a world of concrete, asphalt, attitude, music like sex and obsessions. And that's why Suede are so much more important than rappers or footballers.

Because Suede are about what it's like to feel alive. And they make me feel alive. As if I'm not longer just living in a still life, but alive.

Here's another set of wildly unfolding guitar lines, lyrics about tin cans, and drug paranoia. It must be "Can't Get Enough“, executed with the ruthless efficiency of soldiers, as if somehow they've got play the very life out of these songs. They give their all, because soon there will be nothing.

It's the last, driven dispatch from the sinking ship. This is it. The end. It's too soon. Too fucking soon. Even as they play, even as they give one of their best shows, ever. One of the best set lists. One of the best bands, actually, I realise that this is the end. It's better to burn out than fade away.

Encore time. Sadly, the band perform "Saturday Night“ (their worst ever single, actually, a bland but lovely ballad), before rampaging through the criminally-underrated "Obsessions“", and a final best-Suede-song-ever "New Generation“, which still sounds to me like the Number One Pop Song In Heaven.

This is how it ends. Brett thanks us all, and it's the final celebration. There's no heartbreak now. To end on a maudlin classic, the tearjerking "Next Life“ for example, would've been a heartbreaker. As it stands, Brett says "This is the last song" and somehow I don't believe him.

It's only 9.40. There's still time for "Stay Together“.

But it is. The last. The final. The exit. The sad farewell. Not with a whimper, but with a bang. With "Trash“. With Richard, tears in his eyes, squeezing out the jauntiest, brashest song he ever wrote, his first Suede single, and the song that made Number 2 in the charts. Anyone remember what was Number One?

Does anyone care?

Thought not. That's because Numbers don't count. Not who was number one, but what was the best.

Suede were the best. They didn't need to do this. They could've carried on forever. Playing to decreasing audience, making shittier and shittier records, devaluing their past and cheapening their future. But they quit now, before they made a bad record, before they betrayed us, before they became an irrelevant dinosaur, before they became The Rolling Stones.

Thirteen years is a fine age for a love affair. But this isn't thirteen years : it's a lifelong passion. Beyond life even. We'll see Suede in the next life. We'll fly away for good.

I miss them already.

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