Manic Street Preachers at The Olympia Saturday 13th December 2014

Tours where bands play a classic album are usually their final hurrah, an indication that they are long since past their prime. Given the rich vein of form the Manic Street Preachers have been in over the past four to five years, it doesn’t seem like they are at the stage to do the classic album tour. Yet ‘The Holy Bible’, even without a standout single, is the one album Manics fans have been yearning to be played from start to finish live.

From the outside it seems like an odd choice as it lacks obvious big anthems such as A Design For Life and If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be Next. It all made sense when it kicked off with Yes though. The Manics played homage to that period of their lives with the stage decked in camouflage and with Messrs Bradfield, Wire and Moore in military garb. While they normally tour with additional guitar and keys players, it would have been out of sync for them to recreate ‘The Holy Bible’ in that fashion.

Shorn of the stripped back production that was on the album, Yes sounded beefed up, more menacing and full of bristling intent when played live. It’s a tone that was to serve the Manics well over the course of ‘The Holy Bible’ set. Early on it was obvious to see the connection ‘The Holy Bible’ had with the fans, with the crowd singing back the chorus to Of Walking Abortion. This isn’t the norm three songs into a set for most bands, but then again ‘The Holy Bible’ isn’t most albums.

Even during Bradfield’s guitar solo for Archives Of Pain, it creates that “lost in a moment” feeling for band and audience alike. The set was well balanced with post punk numbers like Revol, Mausoleum and a particularly frantic Faster being interspersed with more down tempo songs like This Is Yesterday. She Is Suffering was the one song that didn’t benefit as much form the beefed up live production, losing some of its poignancy.

The dense lyrical content didn’t allow Bradfield much time away from the mic so it’s left to Wire to showboat. He strutted the stage, the focus of attention, a conductor feeding off fan energy. Towards the end of ‘The Holy Bible’ set Wire dedicated the show to Richie Edwards “the greatest lyricist I’ve ever known”.

The second half of the show was a more familiar greatest hits and rarities display with A Design For Life, Motorcycle Emptiness and You Stole The Sun From My Heart showing that the Manics know how to give their fans what they want. It would have been amiss not to play some songs from latest album ‘Futurology’ with Europa Geht Durch Mein and (Dreaming A City) Hugheskova sounding cavernous.

This was a show that covered the vast expanse of their career, with the emphasis on a triumphant rendition of ‘The Holy Bible’. In a venue more packed than a tin of sardines, with a huge celebratory atmosphere, the Manics once again delivered a performance worthy to honour the memory of Richie Edwards.

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