I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: November 19, 2022] Manic Street Preachers

When this tour was announced I practically screamed with delight.

I saw the Manic Street Preachers 23 years ago.  And while I haven’t kept up with their releases, I have listened from time to time.  But their albums from the 1990s are some of my favorites of the era.  And I have never seen Suede and their debut album is one of my favorite albums ever.  They haven’t toured the US in about 25 years.  I bought a pit ticket and was pretty psyched.

I was quite surprised to find out that it hadn’t sold very well.  But the people around me were super into the show and knew every word to every song (which is more than I knew).

My favorite two MSP albums are Everything Must Go (1996) and This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours (1998) and they started off with a song from Truth, the roaring “You Stole the Sun from My Heart.”  The followed it right up with “Everything Must Go.”  I was so excited to find out that James Dean Bradfield still sounded amazing.  He hit some great high notes and was full of power.   Their touring musician (whose name I didn’t catch) added some nice deep backing vocals to the songs.

I was more or less in front of bassist Nicky Wire who was pretty chill–although he did wear a boa for one song.  He used to wear dresses or skirts, but he was just wearing a MSP T-Shirt.  He said a few things (he is known to be controversial), but I didn’t really understand anything he said.

They played songs from throughout their career.  It must have been hard to choose since they have fourteen albums and were only playing fifteen songs.  They didn’t play any songs from their most recent album The Ultra Vivid Lament (2021), which was rather odd.

I was really surprised that they included their cover of the Theme from M*A*S*H “Suicide is Painless.”  They released the song in 1992, and I didn’t think it would still be part of their repertoire.

I also didn’t expect them to play so many (three) songs from their debut album which was a far more rocking affair.  The crowd loved it and sang along to “Slash ‘n’ Burn” and “You Love Us.”  Interestingly, they played “You Love Us” and “Motorcycle Emptiness” back in 1999 as well.  Have they been playing these two songs for twenty years in every show?

Bradford said that they didn’t have time to do a soundcheck because someone more important than them was there earlier in the day.  That would be Michele Obama who was on her book tour!  Wonder if they got to meet her.

One of my favorite songs of the 90s was the bleak (it is the Manics after all) “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” which just seems more spot on after what’s been going on here.

After playing a tease of “Faster” which they played back in 1999 (they didn’t play anything from The Holy Bible aside from that), they played a newer song.  Then they surprised the heck out of me by playing a cover of The Cult’s “She Sells Sanctuary.”  It sounded great, but I couldn’t help but think that they hadn’t been here in nearly a decade, why they play someone else’s song?

They had a few samples played–mostly synth lines–and I wondered if they were triggered by drummer Sean Moore (it’s impressive that these three core members have been together since the disappearance of their guitarist in 1995).

They ended the set with the same two songs that they ended the 1999 set with (I didn’t remember that, I had to look it up).  But that’s kind of interesting too.  The fact that they ended with “A Design for Life,” was just sublime.  I don’t often sing along to songs, but I couldn’t hold back on this one.

They didn’t do anything fancy.  Their backdrop was a woman in a band uniform holding a French Horn.  The lights were pretty simple, too.  They just played their songs and were done.  And it worked perfectly.

Markit Aneight has a video of the show