Welsh band Manic Steet Preachers are back with their 13th studio album, ‘Resistance is Futile’, which was released on Friday 13th April and Monday saw them return live for the first leg of their UK tour to perform the new record. 

They kicked off their UK Tour with a gig in Newcastle playing the Metroradio Arena on the 23rd April, supported by Liverpool band The Coral.

Support act The Coral kicked off proceedings, The Coral are a band who promised much in the early 00’s, famous for hits such as In The Morning and Dreaming Of You. Dressed in hats not dissimilar to a Noel Fielding outfit, they rip roared into their set. They can be forgiven for a bit of rustiness with song Bill McCai leading the band to a halt mid-song with James Shelly forgetting the words, only for an audience member to shout out the lyrics that had alluded him, a rather humane moment and one the crowd saw the funny side of. Similarly in arguably their biggest ‘hit’ Dreaming Of You, James started to sing the lyrics in the wrong order, which led him to stop the song early on before he and the band started the song from scratch. In all they served as a great warm up for the main event, the Manics.

After an interval, in a crowd which wasn’t full to capacity by any means, with small patches of empty seats and space in the audience, the Manics had quite a visual stage with a large video screen, before house lights went off and the screen depicted a video of a woman who was depicted evolving into the samurai outfit that was the doned the album cover. The band opened with a new song off their new record ‘International Blue’, tearing into the set, after the first couple of songs lead singer ‘James Dean Bradfield proclaimed that despite it being a Monday night that it was actually a Saturday night and that he had advised the crowds employers that he had been given his word they could have the next day off. Featuring a big cheer from the audience.

The set in total featured 23 songs including 6 from their new album, but there was a few surprises in store. Including the song 4ever Delayed which hadn’t been performed live for 11 years, Bradfield proclaimed that they wrote the song for the Greatest Hits album but ‘perversely dint release it as a single’ with a wry smile in tow.  The Manics also included the song ‘Horses Under the Starlight’ which he said was a b-side from the Design for Life single and had never been performed live.

The band also revisited some classics such as ‘slash n burn’ which had also been missing from Manics set lists for a few years, we saw bassist Nicky Wire looking at the big screen behind him notably with Richey James Edwards featuring in the old music video, a somber moment, whilst Edwards disappearance in 1995 left a hole in the Manics, his presence is still there today. Even looking at the stage the band still perform stood/sat in there original positions with stage right featuring the empty space where Richey would be stood.

After classic ‘If you tolerate this’, the band went off whilst Bradfield performed Faster and Kevin Carter acoustically on his own. He also told the story of when Manics performed at Newcastle last year with Live at Times Square, that after the gig, he went for a few drinks in Newcastle and was approached by a drunken Geordie who asked Bradfield if he wanted some drinks. Bradfield said he showed reluctance as the man was just casually covered in blood all over his face, when he pointed it out to the Geordie man (featuring his attempts at the accent) he said that the man said he had taken ‘4 paracetamols and he was fine’.

The band reappeared for You Love Us. Lately, Bradfield introduced the song ‘Let Robeson Sing’ as a song that was very relevant today with the political climate across the world, it was tinged with sadness when he said ‘it’s off our unsuccessful record…. know your enemy’.

The band finished with Design For Life including gold paper shooting into the audience from the stage like a condensed Pink Floyd concert to end the night. In all a superb performance with Bradfield thanking the audience from all the band including Richey Edwards.

The Manic Street Preachers are touring the UK with the next gig in Glasgow on the 25th April.

The album ‘Resitance Is Futile’ is available from all good record shops.

Review By Tom Holynski

The meaning is in the waiting – RS Thomas