Everything Must Go 20th Anniversary Fanzine

I did a fanzine about the 20th anniversary of The Holy Bible in 2014 and I'd like to do another for the 20th anniversary of Everything Must Go.

I really enjoyed reading your contributions last time, they were honest, sincere and heartfelt in some cases and I want to get your passion for the Manics and EMG recorded somehow.

If you'd like to contribute, you can either send me any essays or thoughts via email (see below) or take this simple survey that addresses some of the things I'd like to record (https://eSurv.org?u=emg20).

So please enter your thoughts/feelings/opinions about Everything Must Go via the survey or by email. The answers you give will be compiled into a fanzine that I will get to the Manics somehow!

I would also love any artwork you might have done or copies of newspaper/magazine clippings from 1996/EMG era for incorporation.  Full credit will be given.

This survey will close on the 23rd April 2016 to give me enough time to compile it.

If you have any questions or would like to contact me with longer essays, pictures, clippings, stories or anything else, please email fymsp@gmx.com. You can tweet me at @FYMSP.

In it till the end.

When did I first hear the Manics? (Warning: this is going to age me badly) I first saw them on TOTP doing Theme From M*A*S*H. I liked M*A*S*H. Who were these stinky oiks covering this theme song I liked?! They were all skinny and young. The singer was shirtless and trim. I didn’t like him, he looked like he needed to be dipped in a hot bath. That other guitarist on the other hand…that one on the left, pale skin, dark eyes and hair, he’s alright…Richey. So, that was me then, smitten by Richey. Luckily he was quite gobby and turned up in the music magazines/papers a lot. Not that I bought them (apart from Smash Hits); I stood in Smiths and read them on my way home from school.

I listened to the radio in bed and always got a thrill from Motorcycle Emptiness, La Tristresse, From Despair to Where. I Watched TOTP, laid on my stomach on the carpet with my mum telling me to turn that racket down and was always delighted when they were on; not as much as when Jason Donovan was on naturally (don't judge me), but delighted all the same.

I vaguely remember hearing about 4Real in the playground at school, I certainly didn’t read it in the NME, so I’m lying to make myself look cool if I said I did. I was mainly disgusted but just a little bit thrilled.

Faster on TOTP: James spitting out the lyrics. Visceral and angry. The balaclava tippexed with his name on it as if he’s afraid that someone might steal it. Nicky, thin, pale, gaunt and very tall, smeared in face paint. Richey looking as cool as fuck in his sailor outfit.

Then…Richey goes missing. In my deluded teenage certainty I was sure he’d come back. Entirely convinced. Absolutely certain. Totally positive. I was deluded. He never did.

OK, Richey didn’t come back and the radio interviews with his family broke my heart…but… I was young and fickle and Britpop was happening: Oasis vs Blur. I preferred Pulp and Space and Elastica and Suede. There was so much wonderful music, a guitar band orgy. The Evening Session was always on as I did my English essays and I wrestled with quadratic equations and chemical formulae.  Then I hear the new Manic Street Preachers song. Outrage! How dare they keep going now that Richey’s gone!  What a shit song! I hate them.

I listened to so much radio back then, it was the first thing to go on in the morning and the last thing I turned off and Radio One didn’t stop playing the song just because I didn’t like it. Along with a lot of other songs, it soaked into my entire life.   A blast of Supergrass’ ‘Alright’ is enough to whisk me back to my sixth form common room, drinking cheap hot chocolate out of the vending machine.
I’m at university, walking home to the bus stop in the twilight, holding my cheap CD walkman flat as it skips if you hold it any other way, listening to ‘If You Tolerate This’.  The album bought at the music fair they held in the smelly student’s union that I danced to The Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers in. Bass shaking me from the heart outwards.

I loved the video to ‘Tolerate’; James soulfulness dripping off the screen.  His voice sounding brilliant. They were everywhere, on the radio, on the tv, in magazines. They won awards.  It was good.

After university I stopped listening to so much music. There wasn’t a radio where I worked and I stopped caring what was number one. I worked and I read and tried to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Probably should have figured that out before uni, but there you go…but I still watched TOTP. Not laid face down on the carpet anymore, I was well past the age that that was seemly, but oh, are the Manics still going? Have they got another song out? Not too bad is it? Blimey James has put on weight. Nicky hasn’t. Repeat for many years.

TOTP again. 2006. James is singing his jaunty, catchy solo single and I’m sad because I think the Manics have split up. I’m also wondering when James got quite so foxy. Well, hello Mr Bradfield!
I wander around at lunchtime. I’m not eating anything so I just walk for an hour, then go back to work.  Your Love Alone comes on the radio through my headphones, I’m awed at how wonderful it sounds. It nearly gets to number one! I love this song, it’s catchy, melodic and lovely. Nina brings her je ne sais quoi and lights it on fire. The band look amazing in the video and I wonder why I never noticed James before now.

2008 and I notice Richey’s name in the paper and my deluded teenage self hopes that they’ve found him, hiding out in Goa or Belgium, but no, she finally has to concede that he’s not coming back.  It’s Richey’s obituary. 

I wander around HMV: (remember them kids? Record shops?) Journal For Plague Lovers. The cover so different to anything else in the shop. Richey’s lyrics. I listen to it carefully, the last vestiges of ‘deluded teenage self’ searching for the clues that aren’t there. Every song on it is declared the best song ever. Until the next one. Repeat until ‘William’s Last Words’. I still haven’t listened to it.

The TL:DR version of this: this fucking band have insinuated themselves into my life in a massive way. They didn’t plan it, I didn’t want it, but they did.  I fucking love them and I’m in it until the end.

No Matter How Tortuous The Past Is, The Future Is Always a Straight Line - Futurology Review

The Manics have had a tortuous past, but their future is ripe and full of possibilities. The past twelve months have borne two very different albums, with two very different sensibilities and sounds. If 'Rewind The Film' was a backward glance, a nostalgic snapshot of an album, then 'Futurology' is the sound of band streaming straight through the present into what lies ahead, full on and unafraid.

The most surprising aspect of 'Futurology' is that none of the tracks sound like they should come from the Manic Street Preachers. This isn't the sound they cemented in the mid to late 90s, the anthemic soft rock, this isn't the glam-punk of 'Send Away The Tigers', this isn't 'The Holy Bible' redux. This is the sound of a band that have laid aside the massive guitar riffs, the strings and innovated and experimented. From the dark disco stomp of 'Europa Geht Durch Mich' to the ethereal 'Divine Youth', 'Futurology' has diverged from what we expected and it's a pure fucking delight.
It starts with probably one of the most Manicsy song on the album, 'Futurology' an actual duet (!) between James Dean Bradfield and Nicky Wire, James singing the verses and Nicky the chorus, the refrain 'one day we will return, no matter it how much it hurts' a defiant affirmation; we're here and we're not going away, no matter how hard it is.

'Walk Me To The Bridge' is the catchiest, most radio friendly song the Manics have recorded since 'Your Love Alone'. The insistent rhythmic drums and bassline the heartbeat and spine, the guitars flesh it out and the light sharp, sexy synths shimmer throughout the song, giving it vitality, making the dour message bright, light, airy. It bounces along, a song full of life and energy.

The strong basslines are a feature of this record, they pound a marshall beat in the background of 'Let's Go To War', around which a cheeky guitar riff rip off Grieg dances and a chanted chorus implores us 'Let's go to war'. A defiant song, a call to arms, James begging people to revolt against the career rock 'n' rollers and cynical money-makers that view music as commerce rather than art. The last in a triptych of songs, beginning with 'You Love Us', by the way of  'Masses Against The Classes' a brazen punkish defiant song. The Manics sang 'You Love Us' at the beginning of their career, now they sing 'Don't forget we love you still' and it works both ways, the love they throw at us, gets spat right back at them.

The feeling of motion and travel is never far from this record and explicit in 'The Next Jet To Leave Moscow', a sarcastic, coruscating, criticism of the loss of political ideals: 'an old jaded commie walking in Red Square'; a recognition of the folly of youth: the 'silly little fucker' visiting Cuba. Entirely written and composed by James, he resists the impulse to go balls out to the wind and riff all over it like the guitar rock god he is. Its strength is in its simplicity, built around a heavy bassline, it's melodic and catchy. Repeated listens find the buried treasure of electronic sounds lurking beneath, giving the song texture and depth.

'Europa Geht Durch Mich' marches along, the drums to the fore, a paean to Europe. A duet with Nina Hoss, her stern, warm German voice complements James and brings a different energy to the song. Her voice is strong enough to compete with James in full, insistent and unrestrained mode. Giving Nina the space to sing the verses in German is playful instead of a gimmick, her stentorian tones compel you in some strange way.

'Divine Youth' is another duet with a female singer, Georgia Ruth Williams and James, but the comparisons with the previous song end there, this is a fragile, simple confection of a song that is in danger of floating away into the stratosphere, gilded with Georgia's light brittle voice, it's James who tethers it to the ground with his warm, rich tenor. The song hangs suspended halfway between the sky and ground. The air and lightness that Georgia breathes into it, the song embellished by her ethereal harp, lifts the song, then James' saves it from floating away, his gutsy voice keeping the song from being twee or pretentious.

'Sex, Power, Love and Money' is the epitome of post-punk disco rock, I love it unashamedly, it's what I imagine concentrated Manic Street Preachers sounds like. Starting with a synth intro more likely to be found on an Abba song, the dark dense guitars overwhelm you deliciously, then James talk/sings (not raps) the verses, Nicky intones 'Obsession, possession, confession, recession' while James wails 'Sex, Power, Love and Money'. It shouldn't work, but it's glorious and for me is the playful, joyful heart of the album.

The dense, dark almost malevolent 'Dreaming A City' is a slab of pleasure. A beguiling, disco rock instrumental. I can imagine this scoring a film about a dystopian future or as the theme to a video game. The pulsing bassline built on with guitar, synths and electronic noise. Vocals would spoil this, it's complex and layered; again repeated listens will highlight a new noise you missed and nuance that was overlooked. Simply gorgeous.

'Black Square' starts with Nina Hoss speaking the chorus to 'Europa Geht Durch Mich' on what sounds like an airport tannoy system, the song has a strong synth element and a fine vocal performance from James and in place of a big rock guitar solo, the sound appears to get muted and a sole synthy guitar picks a sparse melody and then as if a train were bursting out of a tunnel into sunlight, James sings the final chorus with renewed vigour. The song fades as if a train were speeding away from you, another motif of travel and motion that is layered and hidden in the album.

Green Gartside of Scritti Politti brings his sweet light tenor/falsetto to 'Between The Clock And The Bed' another duet with James singing the chorus. Again another light song for what is a rumination on the darkness within, on not letting go of old grudges and failures but not wanting to relinquish those selfsame thoughts and convictions. Green's vocals are respectful and it's clear that the band enjoyed the collaboration as he's given the space to make the verses his own. The most unManics sounding song on the album.

'Misguided Missile' starts with strong, simple bass line which builds percussively, another sparse song, James's vocals are clear and strong. The guitar solo, intricate and delicate, the chorus full and blowsy. The themes follow on from 'Between The Clock and The Bed', Nicky casting a self critical look at himself, deciding that despite being a 'self obsessed fool', he's still got the 'drang', the urge to be different, agitate, sing, fill the empty plastic void of modern life with something different.
The last song with vocals on it was originally intended to be on the acoustic 'Rewind The Film' and it displays these origins, however, 'The View From Stow Hill' is performed electrically, with the solo layered a little messily with electronic noises. A song about Nicky's dissatisfaction with his home town, and the regret that he feel in the cheap surroundings.

The album finishes with another instrumental 'Mayakovsky', like the theme to a western, embellished with sparkles of electronic noise, begun with a plaintive Ringo Starr wailing that he has 'blisters on my fingers' it's a gung-ho track, fearless and punctuated perfectly with Nicky's chanting 'Mayakovsky' near the end, the track finishes dissolving into electronic beeps. The album and track end with Nina Hoss returning on her tannoy to speak the chorus of 'Europa Geht Durch Mich' in English this time. The sense of travel pervading the album terminates here, the band feel like they are home.

'Futurology' is the album of a band that is energised, a band not afraid of forward motion and travel. I disagree that the band have 'returned to form', a lazy cliche trotted out when no one knows how best to describe a different direction. The form of the band has been consistently high since 'Send Away The Tigers'. I would describe this as a brave and innovative album, sonically different certainly, by turns euphoric, textured, complex. It's the sound of a group of talented musicians using their considerable experience and being courageous and confident enough to change their sound, embellishing and gilding their music with electronica. The introversion and melancholy of 'Rewind The Film' has been dismissed.

The past may have been tortuous, but the future is a straight line, 'the lines are joined by finding one another' and 'Futurology' is the junction.

Soundtrack of my Life: James Dean Bradfield

Soundtrack of my life: James Dean Bradfield

The Manic Street Preachers frontman on the power of music writing, the depth of Badfinger’s back catalogue – and how Guns N’ Roses shaped his first experience of London.

To mark the 20-year anniversary of the release of their landmark album The Holy Bible, they will release a special edition on CD and vinyl and perform it in full at various UK venues next month. THE SONG THAT MADE ME APPRECIATE SIMPLE SONGWRITING
To Have and to Have Not by Billy Bragg (1983)
This reminds me of that lonely summer in between comprehensive and college, where you see people everywhere with girlfriends, and learning how to drive, and you don’t feel as if you’re going anywhere yourself. “Up in the morning and out to school…” It sounds a bit adolescent, but sometimes the songs that really affect you are the ones that mainline into your soul as a teenager. It gave me some hope. This song made me feel like I could take on the world to a certain degree. We’d written our first song in 1985 and hearing this made me realise: “Wow, you can write a song with quite basic ingredients.” And regardless of any tinpot history that we may have with Mr Bragg, I’ll always be grateful to him for this song. THE SONG THAT LOOKS THROUGH THE EYES OF ANOTHER
Midnight Caller by Badfinger (1970)
I got into Badfinger when I was in my early 20s. They wrote some real grandstand songs like Baby Blue and Day After Day, which were big in America, and obviously they wrote Without You [covered by Harry Nilsson] as well. But if you delve into their back catalogue there are songs that are masterclasses in empathy and full of the most beautiful, human, plaintive tones, and this is one of them. I think it is about a female friend [songwriter] Pete Ham had who worked as a prostituteIt gave me some hope. This song made me feel like I could take on the world to a certain degree. We’d written our first song in 1985 and hearing this made me realise: “Wow, you can write a song with quite basic ingredients.” And regardless of any tinpot history that we may have with Mr Bragg, I’ll always be grateful to him for this song. THE SONG THAT LOOKS THROUGH THE EYES OF ANOTHER
Midnight Caller by Badfinger (1970)
I got into Badfinger when I was in my early 20s. They wrote some real grandstand songs like Baby Blue and Day After Day, which were big in America, and obviously they wrote Without You [covered by Harry Nilsson] as well. But if you delve into their back catalogue there are songs that are masterclasses in empathy and full of the most beautiful, human, plaintive tones, and this is one of them. I think it is about a female friend [songwriter] Pete Ham had who worked as a prostitute. It’s always a challenge: can you write a song from somebody else’s perspective and show empathy and show understanding, and also not make it condescending? Can you understand the fabric of somebody else’s despair and write from their point of view? It’s something that is very rarely pulled off, but Pete Ham does it with this song. This song succeeds in looking through somebody else’s eyes and actually tapping into their anguish. THE SONG THAT SHOWS HOW TO BLEND MUSIC AND POLITICS
We’re All Bourgeois Now by McCarthy (1988)
McCarthy are indie icons of ours – we’ve covered at least three of their songs. They showed how you could fuse music and politics. They were one of the great protest bands but it was never the gurning, spittle-in-your-face confrontational stance that some bands take. There was always some kind of sarcasm in there that would cut its subject down to its knees, and this lyric is a perfect example of that. It talks to working-class disaffection and foreshadows New Labour’s obsession with gentrification and trying to drag people into the new culture with Wi-Fi and coffee houses everywhere: “Once there was class war/ But not any longer/ Because, baby, we are all bourgeois now.”
 
THE SONG THAT HAS A SPECTRAL POWER
Yma O Hyd by Dafydd Iwan (1983)
If you’re a fan of one of the Welsh rugby regions, then you’ll know this song. At Parc y Scarlets in Llanelli, this is what they come out to, and it’s amazing. The lyric is about the Welsh language and how it has withstood the Romans and English culture, but you don’t actually need to know that to appreciate the song. If you play it and it’s raining outside you can feel its spectral power. Dafydd Iwan had a long career in politics with Plaid Cymru but he is also a folk singer. I first heard it about 10 years ago when I went to see Cardiff Blues play the Scarlets. They came on to this song and it just hit me somewhere between my heart and my brain – the perfect place for a song to hit you. I wish I knew how to bottle the feeling this song gives me.

THE SONG THAT GREAT WRITING TURNED ME ON TO
Mississippi Goddam by Nina Simone (1964)
I was reading Dorian Lynskey’s amazing 33 Revolutions Per Minute book, and I went and investigated this song because he’d written about it. I like it when writing affects the ability to understand music, because I grew up reading NME and Melody Maker, Record Mirror, all telling me why some record was amazing. And then I’d give it a listen and I might not like it at first. But then because the writing about the record was so amazing I would believe that there was something there and I’d often grow to love it. After reading the book, suddenly the lyrics are really flying out at you. “I’ve even stopped believing in prayer”: sometimes one line conveys the utter lack of hope in a situation.

Revert Download

Clicking Revert will create a draft of this post in your Tumblr account and add a REVERT.IO tag.

< back

Version History

• 09 Feb 2015 8:51pm

tumblr

post

Soundtrack of my life: James Dean Bradfield

The Manic Street Preachers frontman on the power of music writing, the depth of Badfinger’s back catalogue – and how Guns N’ Roses shaped his first experience of London.

To mark the 20-year anniversary of the release of their landmark album The Holy Bible, they will release a special edition on CD and vinyl and perform it in full at various UK venues next month. THE SONG THAT MADE ME APPRECIATE SIMPLE SONGWRITING
To Have and to Have Not by Billy Bragg (1983)
This reminds me of that lonely summer in between comprehensive and college, where you see people everywhere with girlfriends, and learning how to drive, and you don’t feel as if you’re going anywhere yourself. “Up in the morning and out to school…” It sounds a bit adolescent, but sometimes the songs that really affect you are the ones that mainline into your soul as a teenager. It gave me some hope. This song made me feel like I could take on the world to a certain degree. We’d written our first song in 1985 and hearing this made me realise: “Wow, you can write a song with quite basic ingredients.” And regardless of any tinpot history that we may have with Mr Bragg, I’ll always be grateful to him for this song.
THE SONG THAT LOOKS THROUGH THE EYES OF ANOTHER
Midnight Caller by Badfinger (1970)
I got into Badfinger when I was in my early 20s. They wrote some real grandstand songs like Baby Blue and Day After Day, which were big in America, and obviously they wrote Without You [covered by Harry Nilsson] as well. But if you delve into their back catalogue there are songs that are masterclasses in empathy and full of the most beautiful, human, plaintive tones, and this is one of them. I think it is about a female friend [songwriter] Pete Ham had who worked as a prostitute. It’s always a challenge: can you write a song from somebody else’s perspective and show empathy and show understanding, and also not make it condescending? Can you understand the fabric of somebody else’s despair and write from their point of view? It’s something that is very rarely pulled off, but Pete Ham does it with this song. This song succeeds in looking through somebody else’s eyes and actually tapping into their anguish.
THE SONG THAT SHOWS HOW TO BLEND MUSIC AND POLITICS
We’re All Bourgeois Now by McCarthy (1988)
McCarthy are indie icons of ours – we’ve covered at least three of their songs. They showed how you could fuse music and politics. They were one of the great protest bands but it was never the gurning, spittle-in-your-face confrontational stance that some bands take. There was always some kind of sarcasm in there that would cut its subject down to its knees, and this lyric is a perfect example of that. It talks to working-class disaffection and foreshadows New Labour’s obsession with gentrification and trying to drag people into the new culture with Wi-Fi and coffee houses everywhere: “Once there was class war/ But not any longer/ Because, baby, we are all bourgeois now.”
THE SONG THAT HAS A SPECTRAL POWER
Yma O Hyd by Dafydd Iwan (1983)
If you’re a fan of one of the Welsh rugby regions, then you’ll know this song. At Parc y Scarlets in Llanelli, this is what they come out to, and it’s amazing. The lyric is about the Welsh language and how it has withstood the Romans and English culture, but you don’t actually need to know that to appreciate the song. If you play it and it’s raining outside you can feel its spectral power. Dafydd Iwan had a long career in politics with Plaid Cymru but he is also a folk singer. I first heard it about 10 years ago when I went to see Cardiff Blues play the Scarlets. They came on to this song and it just hit me somewhere between my heart and my brain – the perfect place for a song to hit you. I wish I knew how to bottle the feeling this song gives me.
THE SONG THAT GREAT WRITING TURNED ME ON TO
Mississippi Goddam by Nina Simone (1964)
I was reading Dorian Lynskey’s amazing 33 Revolutions Per Minute book, and I went and investigated this song because he’d written about it. I like it when writing affects the ability to understand music, because I grew up reading NME and Melody Maker, Record Mirror, all telling me why some record was amazing. And then I’d give it a listen and I might not like it at first. But then because the writing about the record was so amazing I would believe that there was something there and I’d often grow to love it. After reading the book, suddenly the lyrics are really flying out at you. “I’ve even stopped believing in prayer”: sometimes one line conveys the utter lack of hope in a situation.
THE SONG THAT REMINDS ME OF OUR FIRST TRIPS TO LONDON
Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N’ Roses (1987)
 I tapped into this song because until I was 18, 19 I really hadn’t been out of Wales very much, and then I was going to London with the band and doing these pub gigs. I had a couple of experiences in London where I thought, “This isn’t the way they do it back home!” Welcome to the Jungle is about this guy from Indiana [Axl Rose] stepping off the Greyhound bus and landing in west Hollywood somewhere – welcome to the jungle! In a romantic way, Richey’s Vauxhall Astra became my Greyhound bus when we all drove up, and the song spoke to me in that way. Guns N’ Roses were a massive influence on us in the early days.

• 

Manics Pranks No. 1

When the Manic Street Preachers played in front of the Thai royal family in Thailand some years ago, James opened the show sounding like a PR agent: “This is dedicated to your lovely king.” There was a significant pause. “May he rot in hell.” The crowd went ghostly quiet. When the band came off stage, the promoter, fearing for his head, shouted at the Manics: “You cannot say this! The Police might come to your room! Something bad might happen. We cannot protect you!”

Just in case, the groups bassist Nicky Wire draped a tablecloth over a table so he’d have somewhere to hide in his room. Ever the wag, Bradfield waited for an hour before banging violently on his colleagues door, shouting in his best broken Thai police voice: “NICKY WIRE! NICKAAAAY WIIIIIIRE! Open up!”

After about ten minutes, fearing that Mr. Wire was about to jump to his death from the 10th floor to escape the police, James relented. “It’s only me, Nicky. It’s James!” he said in a soothing Welsh accent.

“You bastard!” came the not-so-soothing reply.

Archiving FYMSP

The site where I stored my Tumblr backup is shutting down, so I've decided to salvage as many posts as I could in the month before it closes and post them here.

Nothing will be new and all posts will be tagged FYMSP, so you know it's not new news.

Sorry for any spammage. 

The End

I have not been very active on here at all recently, this is due to lots of things, personal mainly, but also because I don't find blogging here as easy as it was on tumblr.

When my tumblr was deleted, it really hurt! I used the tumblr to collect things I liked, I wanted to keep and things that meant things to my fandom. I adored the community there. I really miss it and them. Losing it just tore the heart of my fandom.

So, this is the end. I don't want to be Twitter fan site, there's not enough room for what I want to say, plus there are other sites that do it far better than my half arsed approach. I'm not going to have a Facebook account because I'm not on Facebook and there are a myriad of FB groups.

 I'm not going to say I'll never fangirl again, but for now goodbye. You've been lovely.

REVIEW: Taking The Holy Bible Home

Firstly, I have to confess that I wasn't in Edinburgh, not enough money to travel to the other side of the country and into Scotland, but I know lots of people that were, including the two Manics fans that waved at a naked Nicky Wire in his hotel room while waiting outside the Usher Hall.

I joined the tour outside Wolverhampton Civic Hall and sat through the torrential showers and occasional sunshine. Attempted to dodge the slightly sleazy photographer who was taking pictures of (mostly the younger) fans for a magazine. I like to remain anonymous.

I met for the first time two Manics friends that I'd only ever previously spoken to in cyberspace and it was a massive pleasure to meet them face to face at last. There was no nervousness or awkwardness when I met them, it was as if we we'd known each other for years. Plus thanks to the fabulous Finn for the cakes.

The 7 doors at Wolves Civic (aka the doors of doom) were kind to me and I ended up on the barrier almost in front of James, the stage as always draped in camo netting.

The audience at Wolves were up for it. As soon as 'Yes' started there was a surge forward, I love that feeling, being crushed against the barrier with a thousand or so people behind me mouthing along with all the lyrics. I can understand why James has said that the Civic Hall is one of his favourite venues, it has a special atmosphere. The people that go to gigs here are those that love music and I think the audience that night loved the Manics, I certainly did. James bounced around the stage, Nicky scissor kicked with gay abandon and Sean's drums have rarely sounded as powerful or majestic as on 'Condemned to Rock and Roll'. The night was marred only by one person pulling my hair to get me off the barrier for the first three songs of the second set, but it didn't spoil the night. 

The crowd bounced, yelled, pointed and shouted. I left sweaty and exhilarated. Wolves Civic, you are special.

Then an early morning sprint down the motorway took us to Southampton and the Guild Hall. I was tired and grumpy, so sorry to my companions for having to put up with me. This gig was most notable for me tripping on the way in and breaking my toe. Obviously the best treatment for this is to stand through a gig on it for 4 hours and then walk a mile back to the hotel. Obviously right?

The Southampton crowd didn't seem to wake up until 'PCP' which was confusing for me, usually 'Faster' at least brings about an ecstatic rush from the crowd, pinning the front row against the barrier. The crowd at Southampton was probably the politest crowd I've ever encountered at a Manics gig, actually apologising for squashing us against the barrier.

Southampton brought two big surprises, firstly Nicky Wire in a fucking skirt on stage for the first time since the O2 gig! He accessorized with knee socks and knee pads and looked far better than a middle aged man should do in a skirt and knee pads. The second surprise was the debut of 'Sex Power Love And Money'; one of my favourite songs from Futurology, I sang along with all my might. Watching James Dean Bradfield shout SEX at you from a few metres away is something that still makes weak at the knees.

After a few days off, a trip to A&E for an X-Ray and a special shoe, Friday morning found me in the queue for Cardiff Castle, despite only being able to hobble at a snails pace, with no place guaranteed at the front.

I stayed out of the middle and stood in front of where I think Richey would probably have stood, my place on the barrier only saved for me by the kindness of my friends.

Let me take a little tangent to thank all those friends that I queued alongside, slept with, traveled down with and ate chips with. You are all beautiful, wonderful people and I'm lucky that I'm allowed to call you friends. You are all kind, thoughtful, funny and witty. I'm not sure I deserve you.

The gig at Cardiff Castle was special, but I felt nervous as the Holy Bible seems like it should always be enclosed in a room and left to percolate its bleak tendrils through the crowd.  Cardiff Castle felt like the album was being released out into the twilight dusk and set free to travel out between the city and and the stars, one final cathartic scream into the dark and then you'll be free of the weight of its history.
 

 

It really was exhilarating to hear 'Of Walking Abortion's' final lines being spat out by so many fans. It was spine-tingling and beautiful hearing 'This Is Yesterday' at dusk, the lines being sung softly by the crowd like a sigh spreading out through the crowd in front of the castle.

Nicky looked lean and business like and Sean brushed the dust off his UN beret (and put it on backwards) and pounded the drums like the machine he is.

James, after the interval now in black instead of his sailor top, was joined by the Vulcan String Quartet for a special rendition of 'The Everlasting'; pure and brilliant and perfectly sung and beautifully presented.

It was a sweet interlude before the frenzy that always is 'Motorcycle Emptiness', the backdrop to which was video of the Manics when they were just starting out, young and fresh with beautiful Richey staring through the gap of two decades and into the hearts of the crowd.

Nicky teased the crowd with a change into a second jacket instead of his promised camo dress, later disappearing from the stage while James launched into the Welsh National Anthem and returning in short skirt with long, long legs, looking slightly fragile like a newly born giraffe.

There was a big sense of celebration by the end of the gig, with 'A Design For Life' uniting the entire crowd in song.  The Holy Bible finally brought home and letting go of the  weight of its history,  celebrating Richey Edwards and looking forward.

With that, the fireworks went off and James and Nicky smashed the toughest bass guitar ever known to pieces and walked off stage. Goodnight Richey, goodbye Holy Bible. The majesty of 'Mausoleum' and 'Archives of Pain' will live with me for a good while yet.

So thank you to Nicky Wire, Sean Moore, James Dean (fucking) Bradfield and the beautiful Richard Edwards. That was the Holy Bible. May your Gods go with you, good night.

Apology

Sorry I've not been active on here, lots of things going on that I need to concentrate on. Hopefully, I'll get back on the blogging bus (I'd that even a thing?) soon.