Manic Street Preachers + Editors @ Genting Arena, 14th May 2016
For Manic Street Preachers tonight was the 20th anniversary of the commercially successful Everything Must Go album. The Genting Arena was not quite full at the start for Editors and their dark, moody and hypnotic performance. Singer Tom Smith makes a quite eerie character and plays the role with ease. The crowd thoroughly loved it greeting the final thank you to the Manics for having Editors as support with great applause.
So, the main act; needing very little introduction James Dean Bradfield took to the stage alone and into the intro of Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier, followed on shortly after by the rest of the band, who were looking keen and sharp. My attention was immediately drawn to the incredible Nicky Wire, looking like a true Rock Star with wacky hair, sunglasses, skinny jeans and an amazing jacket full of badges with bands films etc. After the first few tracks Wire introduced himself – “How the F*ck are ya <Crowd Roars>, We are the Manic Street Preachers from Wales, We are here to reminisce Everything Must Go and hope we don’t ruin the memory for you” before piling into the rest of the album, which was good stuff but uneventful.
The last track off the album ad closing the first set, No Surface All Feeling saw the whole crowd invited to “Go Crazy and jump up and down” which is exactly what the did, though it’s worth noting that one group down at the front and middle were keeping the rest of the crowd going all night.
The second set was more entertaining featuring Manic Street Preachers Bingo as they call it, where the crowd were shouting out songs and Bradfield tried to oblige by playing some of the hits requested, “If I can remember some of them”. Initially Starlover was rejected (“too obscure”) in favour of a short version of The Masses Against The Classes moving into a full Tsunami which I felt showed off the vocals well with Bradfield belting his heart out -a great track by a great band and it was obvious the 2nd half was going to get fun with Motorcycle Emptiness next and the crowd going nuts.
Towards the end of the set Bradfield introduces a new member to the band – on guitar Wayne Murray, followed by Wire shouting “a song from the 80’s and a single back in the 80’s. When it came out we all bought it and were doing it for the f*ck of it. This is Feels Like Heaven” – not a familiar track to myself but it had the classic Manics’ styles.
In summary, YES! They still have it, The night was a pleasure to be in the company of a band whose values are still intact and performing to the best they are able to, undoubtedly none of these guys are short of a few quid but still have the utmost professionalism, tonight was clearly about the fans and them celebrating with us, finishing on the epic If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next was just as good as the first time I heard it, no encore as with most Manic Street Preachers’ concerts.
Manic Street Preachers’ Set Lists
Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier
A Design for Life
Kevin Carter
Enola/Alone
Everything Must Go
Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky
The Girl Who Wanted to Be God
Removables
Australia
Interiors (Song for Willem de Kooning)
Further Away
No Surface All Feeling
Second Set:
The Masses Against the Classes
Tsunami
Motorcycle Emptiness
Walk Me to the Bridge
Your Love Alone Is Not Enough
Nat West-Barclays-Midlands-Lloyds
You Stole the Sun From My Heart
Roses in the Hospital
(It’s Not War) Just the End of Love
(Feels Like) Heaven
You Love Us
If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
Words and photographs: Chris Bowley