YOU!! LOVE!! US! YOU LOVE US!! YOU LOVE US!! YOU LOVE!!!!...

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Guess where I've just been?!

[borealis]

MSP??

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Manics3.JPG (79.75 KiB) Viewed 3038 times

[Azathoth]

I was forcibly dragged to one of their gigs once. Would rather have been at home

[Horwood Beer-Master]

[Horwood Beer-Master]

[Horwood Beer-Master]

38 songs, 3 hours, no support act. - Brilliant!


I'm a bit deaf right now...

[Audley Strange]

I was forcibly dragged to one of their gigs once. Would rather have been at home

I on the other hand always loathed them until I saw them accidently and thought they did an incredible live set. Never bothered buying any albums or going to see them again though.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Who?

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Looks like someone out there on the interwebs has uploaded a couple of videos already. Looks like they must have been up in one of the stands, and on the other side of the stage from us.

Who?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_Street_Preachers

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Seems alot more vids have been uploaded now, including..,

[Horwood Beer-Master]

NME review.

Manic Street Preachers team up with Gruff Rhys and The Cardigans' Nina Persson in London

Welsh trio bring their 'National Treasures' to the O2 Arena

Manic Street Preachers were joined by Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys and The Cardigans' Nina Persson tonight (December 17) for their special Christmas show at London's O2 Arena.

The Welsh trio teamed up with Rhys for the first time in their career for single 'Let Robeson Sing' with the SFA singer taking lead vocals on the track.

Introducing Rhys, Bradfield told the crowd that they wanted to collaborate with him during their tour of Cuba in 2001 but it fell through at the time.

Later, The Cardigans' frontwoman Nina Persson sang on their 2007 single 'Your Love Alone Is Not Enough'. She previously teamed up with the band in the UK during their Glastonbury performance that same year.

As Nicky Wire promised earlier in the week, the Manics chose not to run through all 38 hits from their singles compilation 'National Treasures' in album order.

Instead they mixed many new and old songs together throughout their mammoth show.

Arriving onstage, 20 minutes later than their scheduled time of 7.30pm, Bradfield joked:"Howdy doody O2. Better late than never ever eh?", before launching into 'You Stole The Sun From My Heart'.

During their set they also took time out to recall lost member Richey Edwards with Wire describing the band's favourite single - 'Faster' as his "fucking masterpiece".

Later he also told the crowd an anecdote about how the former guitarist wrote 'Revol'. "We were in Portugal at this festival until about 2am in the morning and Richey peaked too early," explained Wire.

"He was fucking smashed eating a kiwi fruit and he goes: 'I've got an amazing lyric, it's about group sex in the Kremlin'. I said: 'Sounds like a winner to me', so here we go."

Both Bradfield and Wire were on jovial form throughout the show, the former bantering about the flamboyant bassist's many costume changes while the latter joked following the interval: "Fuck me look at him making a costume change [during the interval]. Who'd have thought it."

Wire also took a pop at Coldplay later when he told the crowd: "In typical fashion I think I fucking pulled my shoulder on 'Revol'. I should be doing pilates and yoga like Coldplay eh?"

The band wrapped up the show with their debut single 'Motown Junk' before thanking their guest collaborators and making a final tribute to Edwards.

The show was their last for at least two years which Bradfield acknowledged when he signed off with 'A Design For Life', saying: "Thank you for coming out tonight, you're the lifeblood of old taffs likes us. Merry fucking Christmas. Well see you back in Britain in two years time hopefully."

True to form, Wire ended the show by smashing his bass onstage and pushing a prop over.

Manic Street Preachers played:


'You Stole The Sun From My Heart'
'Love's Sweet Exile'
'Motorcycle Emptiness'
'(Its Not War) Just The End Of Love'
'Everything Must Go'
'She Is Suffering'
'From Despair To Where'
'Autumnsong'
'Empty Souls'
'Let Robeson Sing'
'Faster'
'Life Becoming A Landslide'
'Kevin Carter'
'Little Baby Nothing'
'This Is The Day'
'The Everlasting'
'Indian Summer'
'Stay Beautiful'
'If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next'
'Australia'
'La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)'
'Found That Soul'
'There By The Grace Of God'
'Some Kind Of Nothingness'
'You Love Us'
'Theme From M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless)'
'Revol'
'The Love Of Richard Nixon'
'Ocean Spray'
'The Masses Against The Classes'
'Roses In The Hospital'
'So Why So Sad'
'Postcards From A Young Man'
'Your Love Alone Is Not Enough'
'Slash N Burn'
'Tsunami'
'Motown Junk'
'A Design For Life'

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Some more vids that have been posted.













Le grand finale..,



I was covered in that confetti and ticker-tape, I'm still finding bits around the house. I think I may have swallowed some of it.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Grauniad review.

"There are many songs you might go to the bar for," says the singer James Dean Bradfield. "But this one, I think, everyone stays for." Correct on both counts. In a three-hour show, it's inevitable that some numbers will signal an exodus to the beer queue. But this particular hit, Motorcycle Emptiness, is one of the cornerstones of the Manic Street Preachers' catalogue, and nobody is going anywhere. As Bradfield reaches the song's soaring apex, he's drowned out by a backing choir of 16,000 voices.

That the Manics can sell out an arena gig at which they perform all 38 of their singles (as compiled on the recent album National Treasures) proves they were right about one thing all along: they really are a stadium band. Even presented in a non-chronological jumble – 1992's Motorcycle Emptiness is followed by last year's Just the End of Love; 1994's Faster bumps up against 2001's Let Robeson Sing – the songs cohere into a dynamic whole. Preceded by wry anecdotes from Bradfield and bassist Nicky Wire – whose red bob and kohl-blackened lids give him an unmistakable resemblance to Mary Portas – each song is a tremendous affirmation of their stature in British rock.

As ever, the lost Richey Edwards is never far away. He hovers behind them in old video footage, and there's an eerie moment during Roses in the Hospital when the video cuts to Edwards singing the same words as Bradfield. Imagine Richey's shock, should he ever return to find that their core audience of androgynous indie waifs is now greatly outnumbered by beefy men who hoist their pints while singing Everything Must Go.

The Cardigans' Nina Persson and Super Furry Animal Gruff Rhys guest on, respectively, Your Love Alone Is Not Enough and Let Robeson Sing, but create little stir. It's the Manics the fans want, and as confetti rains down during A Design for Life, the love between band and crowd nearly takes the roof off.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Some other review.

Manic Street Preachers, O2 Arena
All killer no filler, and lots of it, from the pride of Wales

Call it an absurdly grand gesture if you like, but Manic Street Preachers' decision to bow out of live performance for a while with a gig in which they would play every one of their 38 singles had to be admired. It certainly had an all-or-nothing rigour that Richey Edwards would have endorsed. But would James Dean Bradfield recall all the words? Would Nicky Wire's knees survive all of that sustained bouncing around. Would piledriving drummer Sean Moore wear a hole in his skins? These and more questions were answered during last night's frequently stunning gig.

The canny step was taken not to do the singles in chronological order. That might have meant that early devotees of the "You Love Us"-era D-I-Y Preachers could knock off early, while fans of their Cuba-visiting stadium chic personae could arrive fashionably late. Instead the tracks were mixed and matched, with namechecks for the likes of Picasso, Malcolm X, Francis Bacon and Derek Jarman reminding the audience of the band's artistic/bookish/dissident credentials. The decision to do absolutely everything meant that there were a few misses, but only a few.

When the sailor-suited Bradfield strode on and kicked off with "You Stole The Sun From My Heart" proceeedings started on a high and took up residence there for the next three hours. Powerhouse, emotional renditions of the glam-metal "Motorcycle Emptiness" and a scorched earth, turbo-charged "Everything Must Go" early in the set made it look as if the band was playing safe and frontloading the gig with favourites, but it soon became apparent that there were plenty of unforgettable classics to spread around.

If the mood was celebratory, there was an inevitable poignant undertow as old videos provided a visual backdrop for each song and Richey Edwards appeared for pre-disappearance tracks such as “From Despair to Where”. No other band is as self-consciously acutely aware of their own mythology and while the remaining members are now in their forties, these glimpses were a reminder that Edwards will forever be the kohl-eyed twentysomething with a love of situationism and faded glamour.

Former Super Furry Animal Gruff Rhys pitched up to provide main vocals on "Let Robeson Sing" and The Cardigans' Nina Persson flew in from America just to sing "Your Love Alone is not Enough". But this was not a night for star cameos, it was about the original members of the band, childhood chums who came out of South Wales with a sub-Clash manifesto and far exceeded expectations, at least in musical terms. I'm no fan of arena gigs but the Manics were in commanding form, with Bradfield's vocals on the closing track of the first half, "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" reaching the very back of the O2.

In fact it was hard to find fault with this gig. The acoustics were in surprisingly fine fettle, the audience was in good humour – thank you to whoever passed down some much-needed biscuits in the second half – and the banter between Bradfield and Wire varied from the touching and the political to the positively comedic. Wire donned a skirt in the second half and tried to persuade Bradfield to do the same with little success. On "Revol" the lanky bassist threw himself around the stage so much he injured his shoulder: "I should be doing yoga and pilates like Coldplay," he said with a dry smirk. Looking back on the band's career Wire conceded that maybe they hadn't changed the world as they hoped: "The first song we wrote was about the miners' strike... there's still a lot of cunts in power."

Maybe there was a little too much guitar hero noodling from Bradfield on "Roses in the Hospital" and maybe some of their recent singles were not their best, but the band was as gloriously frenetic last night as they were when they first punched their way into the pop consciousness with "Motown Junk". As the gig reached its climax and confetti shot out of cannons they piled into "A Design for Life" and went out in grand symphonic style. There is clearly life in the old Welsh dragons yet. Everything must go, perhaps, but this was no closing down sale.

My bold.

That line got a big cheer.