Not quite so manic, but still angry
Manic Street Preachers The SSE Arena, Wembley
Depending on your perspective, Manic Street Preachers are either hoary rock survivors or an intriguing creative force still nudging their musical boundaries with polemic pop. The Manics were comfortably in the latter camp at this almost sold-out show at the SSE Arena, Wembley.
Their 13th album, Resistance is
Futile, which was released last month, is a slab of lush orchestral rock featuring choruses the size of their native Monmouthshire. The fact that the album was only held off the top slot by the soundtrack to The Greatest
Showman (or as their PR bluntly puts it, “that sodding circus album”) proves that what’s left of the record-buying public still loves the Manics.
The group exploded on to the music scene in the early Nineties as art-punk provocateurs with a love of eyeliner and arch political slogans. Both were evident here: the eyeliner on bassist Nicky Wire and the slogans – from Tennessee Williams and American protest singer Phil Ochs – on a screen above the stage. It’s hard to argue with Ochs’ statement: “In such ugly times the only true protest is beauty.” But it’s equally hard to take slogans at gigs seriously any more.
No matter; the music retained its power, especially in an early Motorcycle Emptiness, which 26 years after its release, remains the perfect melding of Guns N’ Roses and Burt Bacharach.
Singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield introduced the Anchoress – Welsh singer Catherine Anne Davies – for three duets. Little Baby Nothing, originally sung with ex-porn star Traci Lords, was a perfect nugget of melancholic bubblegum pop. Bradfield promised a “bit of showbiz from a gnarled old taff ” for new track Dylan & Caitlin, about the Thomases. This apparently meant maintaining eye contact with Davies throughout, but the song captured why the Manics remain vital: it fizzed with energy and brooding romance, its riff an instant earworm. Meanwhile, songs such as Everything Must Go from their late Nineties, Brit Awards phase went down a storm.
After an acoustic section that turned their angriest song, Faster, into one of their most affecting, Wire returned to the stage in a ra-ra skirt. “If you’ve got the finest pair of legs in rock ’n’ roll, you might as well use them,” he said.
Some would argue that a 49-year-old should leave such things in the dressing up box. But as A Design For Life echoed across Wembley, these self-styled gnarled old taffs proved that – skirt aside – being angry, defiant and middle aged are not mutually exclusive.