“Tonight is the first time we’ve played here in 10 years. We’re sorry it took so long.”
James Dean Bradfield offered up an apology to the sell-out crowd when the Manic Street Preachers performed at Aberdeen’s Music Hall 15 years ago.
The politically-charged Welsh band’s return proved to be well worth the wait.
Bradfield’s sums were slightly out because it was 11 years since the band last played the Music Hall which was back in 1996 on the Everything Must Go Tour.
Other bands of the decade may have made better music, played better gigs, influenced more people and sold more records, but nobody else in the 1990s could claim to have consistently held the attention as firmly as the Manic Street Preachers.
Triumph and tragedy in the 1990s
The band enjoyed, and endured, more twists, turns, ups and downs in the decade than just about all of their contemporaries combined.
After releasing their debut album, Generation Terrorists, in 1992 they went on to achieve stadium-sized success following the mysterious disappearance of the band’s lyrical genius and second guitarist, Richey Edwards, in 1995.
Throughout all this, they created some of the most fiery, and certainly the most politicised, rock music of their times.
Here was a Brit-winning, platinum-selling, known-to-housewives major band following the success of 1996’s Everything Must Go and 1998’s This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours.
Sixth album, Know Your Enemy, was released in 2001 to what were generally mixed reviews from the critics and included the singles Ocean Spray and Let Robeson Sing.
After the Welsh trio released their seventh album, Lifeblood, late in 2004, the public saw a band seemingly coming to the end of their days.
Manic Street Preachers resurgence
Even their hardcore fans were disillusioned.
Bradfield and his band-mates Sean Moore and Nicky Wire saw the same things and kick-started a resurgence that saw their best reviews in a decade.
Send Away the Tigers won an armful of awards and a legion of new, young fans.
Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, the Manics’ duet with The Cardigans singer Nina Persson, was their best song in years and made music lovers sit up and take notice.
Only the combined pop powers of Beyonce and Shakira, with the song Beautiful Liar, could keep them from the top of the singles chart back in April 2007.
The UK tour to promote the album included the December 2 2007 date at Aberdeen’s Music Hall and Bradfield spoke to the EE beforehand about the band’s resurgence.
“There has been some kind of revival this year – I guess we just got back to what we do, or know, best,” he said.
“I don’t want to be overly dramatic about it, but it felt as if we’d settled with our ghosts somewhat.
“And we’ve sold about 90,000 tickets for our gigs this year and done some festivals too.
“Things like that affect us more than they used to.
“We were a band of entitlement before, but now our gratitude is a lot more heartfelt when people come to see us and buy our records.”
Rose-tinted spectacles
Bradfield was candid, forthright, earnest and sincere.
He said each date on their tour brought back special memories of the days the band travelled around in an old van, playing dodgy venues all over the country.
“Inevitably, we’ve got rose-tinted spectacles now,” he said.
“The good old days weren’t quite as good as we might remember. We’ll come to a town and it might just be a chippy that we went to years ago that sparks us off reminiscing, or an Army and Navy store where we bought some clothes, but I like that.”
Manic Street Preachers at Aberdeen Music Hall
So, just how good was the gig at the Music Hall back in 2007?
The band played their way through their extensive back catalogue which covered everything from their heady punk roots to their more melodic offerings of recent years.
Set highlights from the two-hour show included Motorcycle Emptiness, Everything Must Go, Enola/Alone and If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next.
Design for Life was the perfect set closer.
The EE review described the Manics as being back to their best.
The review said: “Numbers from their rockier days included Slash And Burn, Motown Junk and Little Baby Nothing.
“But for every noisy rock number, there were quieter moments to follow – cue a tender performance of The Everlasting by James alone, on acoustic guitar.
“To close, the band paid tribute to former band member Richey Edwards, who famously disappeared in 1995, before breaking into anthem Design For Life.
“The perfect end to an outstanding gig.”
The band returned to the Music Hall in 2010 where Bradfield suggested bassist Nicky Wire was a not-so-secret Dons fans which went down well with the masses!
The band set themselves a task to play at least one song from each of their 10 albums.
A sell-out audience was treated to the “nice song” from The Holy Bible, This Is Yesterday, the seasonal Autumn Song from Send Away The Tigers and needed scant encouragement to lend some vocal backing for the Generation Terrorists-era Motorcycle Emptiness.
The EE said: “From a thundering Motown Junk, through Bradfield’s solo acoustic rendition of Stay Beautiful, and on to a ferocious Faster, the Welsh rockers led their fans through a set that was part greatest hits, part neglected gems.
“Of course, the reason for their first visit to the Granite City in three years was to showcase their just-released ‘radio-friendly’ album, Postcards From A Young Man.
“Bradfield may have been trying to curry favour when he let slip that bassist Nicky Wire had a childhood fixation with the Dons, but he needn’t have bothered because the Manics were preaching to the converted from the word go.”
They still are.
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