Manic Street Preachers
London Wembley Arena
Nicky Wire and co. refuse to go gentle into that good night.
Middle age suits the Manic Street Preachers better than anyone could have ever imagined. The eyeliner and spray paint were swapped for unbuttoned suits a long time ago, and those death-or-glory proclamations have been sunk by the baggage of history, but 30 years after their debut single Suicide Alley they’re as confoundingly unique as they ever were.
Tonight presents an incomplete cross-section of a career that has constantly resisted expectation. The fixtures and fittings are unchanging: leopard skin-clad anthems Motorcycle Emptiness and You Love Us still slot comfortably between the Spector-esque grandeur of If You Tolerate This… and A Design For Life. Slogans, quotes and lyrics flash across the screens behind them, and images of vanished guitarist Richey Edwards remain no less poignant with the passing years.
Obscurities and covers are thrown into the mix: 1996 B-side Horses Under Starlight, 2003’s 4 Ever Delayed, a shonky take on the Sex Pistols’ No Feelings, sung by a tennis-skirted Nicky Wire. What their new songs lack in musical tautness, they make up for in lyrical depth – International Blue, Distant Colours and Hold Me Like A Heaven are as honest a dissection of the insecurity of age and the death of ideals as you’ll ever hear from an arena rock band.
Thirty years in, the Manics remain wilfully, defiantly misunderstood. Same as it ever was.