MANIC STREET PREACHERS + IAN BROWN.
AT THE NOTTINGHAM ARENA. 11/ 12/ 02.
I had tickets for this gig booked about 4 months ago. The day had now finally arrived. I was going to see the Manic Street Preachers. I had major problems the night before. I could not decide what to wear. I had to decide weather or not I should take a jumper. On the day I decided it would probably be a good idea to. I had to get up stupidly early to catch the first of 2 buses and 2 trains. I was expecting to see preachy people who were going to the gig throughout my journey. By the time I had travelled 20 or so miles down the road and caught my 2nd bus it was looking quite promising. There was a girlie on the bus wearing a cool pink jacket, flares and purple boots. Once I got to York though she disappeared into the city centre. I continued to the train station to catch my first train. By the time it arrived into Chesterfield I was hoping to see loads of possible Manics fans. Instead a few businessmen and an old woman greeted me. On arrival in Nottingham I started to question weather or not I had turned up on the correct day. I thought I would see glammy type people walking around everywhere. I could not have been more wrong.
I went for some chips. They were disgusting and expensive, they cost �1. That is 30p more than what they cost were I live. I then had a quick look around town before attempting to find the venue, The Nottingham Arena. It proved to be a near impossible task. All I had was a crappy little map that came with my ticket. It wasn�t much help. Neither were the council. You would have thought that for something as important as an ice arena they would have put up sign posts. They hadn�t. There wasn�t one. I arrived at the arena around an hour and a half later, at about 1pm.
As I turned the corner I was expecting to see hundreds of fans waiting in line. In actual fact I turned the corner to see around just 10 people. I could not believe it. Where was everyone?! Well on a day like that one they were properly still tucked up in bed. It was soooooooooo cold. No sooner had I arrived, I left again to chase a tour bus around the corner to the rear of the venue. The nearby security person assured us that the Manics were not on board. I�m not convinced. Maybe they were, maybe they weren�t. I have no real way of knowing. We didn�t see who got off it because they parked it behind closed gates. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
And with that I went to join the que. The people at the very front had been there since 7 in the morning. They had been to every gig on the tour. Oh my god. That�s dedication for you. The next few in line arrived 2 hours before me. The next to arrive after me turned up at about 2.30pm. The occasional gang of fans continued to arrive throughout the afternoon. Up until around 5ish though the highest amount of people there still only reached about 35.
By around 6 I was in pain. I could barely move. I had never been so cold in all my life. It was freezing. I decided to go to the toilet and make final preparations. I took off my jumper to reveal my white shirt and school tie. I put on my glitter and went for a wee wee. When I got back, we still had another hour to wait. The doors finally opened at 7.15pm. The door person took my ticket. What a bastard. I wanted to keep it as a souvenir dammit. I ripped off part of the stub to speed up the process of getting in. There was a stampede to the front. I got on the front row right in front of Nicky Wire. The wait had been worth it.
I was still cold though. We were stood above the ice of the ice rink. To top it all, the �crowd safety� people refused to let us put our bags under the barrier at the front. Instead we had to keep hold of them. Surely that would make it more dangerous wouldn�t it?! After another half an hour of waiting monkey boy, sorry I mean Ian Brown, came on to a half-cheering, half boooooooing crowd. At Manics gigs you get two types of fans. The dedicated long time followers will be stood at the front with their feather boas, leopard print, glitter and tiaras. At the back you will find the short-term fans who will probably have followed the Manics since �Everything Must Go�. They will be thinking to themselves �What are the freaks at the front doing here?� I was at the front with the real fans. They really did not like Ian Brown.
We all wanted him to come on as soon as possible so we could get him out of the way and get the party started. He mumbled all the usual songs. If you can call them songs. There was the �Star� one and the one that goes �love�s like a fountain, climb every mountain�. It goes something like that anyway. I wasn�t really listening. There was others in-between too plus lots and lots of booooooooing from the crowd. At one point Ian even said �I no I�m shit but at least I didn�t pay �20 to get in�. Fair point. A certain James Dean Bradfield was twice spotted watching Ian from the side of the stage. Even he looked bored. I certainly was. Chief monkey just went on and on and on. Just like this review. He was only on for 45 minutes. It felt like forever. He concluded with what can only be described as the worst cover version ever. He ruined the Michael Jackson classic �Billie Jean�. Even after the last song, Ian still wandered around the stage for another 5 minutes. What a twat.
Once Ian had gone, an army of roadies took his place. A sense of relief passed around the arena. At 9.15pm the lights finally went down, the screens kicked into action, the intro music began and James, Nicky, Sean, the keyboard guy and the percussion guy strolled on stage and launched into �Motorcycle Emptiness�. James was wearing a boring black suit with white shirt. Nicky was wearing a parka jacket, a hat and leather trousers. For some reason there didn�t seem to be much of an atmosphere. There was little movement in the crowd. What atmosphere there was was cold like the cold of the ice we were stood on. �You Stole The Sun From My Heart� came next. To introduce �The Masses Against The Classes�, James picked out a scale on his guitar and then signalled for the crowd to copy it. There wasn�t much of a response. James sarcastically thanked the crowd for their participation.
The live version of �There By The Grace Of God� is much better than what the track is on CD. It�s louder and heavier. The crowd were now starting to wake up. Somebody requested �Suicide�. James responded by saying �Suicide? That could be a million and one of our songs�. �Kevin Carter� is performed next to the biggest response of the night so far. Nicky spoke his first words of the night when he attempted to introduce �Life Becoming A Landslide�. The drunks in the crowd were talking at the same time as Nicky though leading James to take on the role of teacher by mimicking the drunks and saying �The man is trying to speak�. The man was Nicky of course. He had now taken his hat off by the way to reveal his gilttery hair.
They sang �Slash �N� Burn. I have never seen them perform this before so it was a real highlight for me. It was amazing. After �Tsunami� came �Motown Junk�, one of my favourites. James dedicated it to �The Edwards family and Mr. Richard Edwards�. The crowd burst into appluades. �Motown Junk� was followed by �Theme From Mash� and �Stay Beautiful�. If I was asked to choose my favourite part of the gig, I think it would have to be �Stay Beautiful�. It was one of only a few tracks that hadn�t been modified. For some reason the Manics had hired a percussionist for this tour. His tambourine sounds etc were just bloody annoying and ruined several of my favourite tracks. The keyboards seemed to have a bigger role than normal too making more and more tracks sound poppy.
Nicky had now taken off his trousers to reveal knee high socks. He had put his hair in bunches too. James introduced the band before �Little Baby Nothing� which was dedicated to Traci Lords. At this point a tiara with a flashing light was thrown on stage. James decided to wear it for awhile. �Faster� was performed with an electro-acoustic guitar and yet more keyboards and percussion. It sounded good but the original version is way, way better. �From Despair To Where�, �Ocean Spray� and �Roses In The Hospital� soon followed.
Then it was time for the only new song of the evening �Forever Delayed�. It will soon be released as a single. I really hope it is going to be their last single. If they have any sense, the Manics will split after it�s release. I don�t want them to split but I really think they should, while they still have some credibility left. �Forever Delayed� is another pop offering. �The Everlasting� went down really well with the crowd. �Everything Must Go� got one of the biggest responses of the night. �If You Tolerate This� came next before a fantastic version of �You Love Us�. James dedicated it �With the exclusion of nobody, this is for everybody, you love us�. The screens forming the back drop of the stage showed archive clips of the band. It was quite emotional.
They concluded as always with �Design For Life� during which James performed while stood on a speaker stack thing. The whole crowd joined in. At the end, James lit a cig, Nicky threw around the Mic stands and Sean just seemed to disappear. Nicky hung around onstage for several minutes. Hope I got some good photos of him. As they left the stage, I pestered the security people for a set-list. As usual I got the �I�m not allowed to get you one� line and the �I�ll get you one soon� line. I came close but in the end the girl who had been queuing since 7 got the last one and I was left empty handed. I did manage to get back a ticket though.
I went to the merchandise stand to discover t-shirts been sold for �20 and programmes for �6 there wasn�t even anything much in it. Rip off. I didn�t buy anything. It seems that like with most other bands, the Manics are now trying to cash in wherever they can. Lately they released their Greatest Hits knowing full well that their dedicated fans would go buy it even though they already have ever track on it. They released a book, signed copies of which they are selling for �100. They released a DVD. They�re even charging �1.50 to access videos on their website. What has happened? Sell outs!!
BY MR MARTYN. DECEMBER 2002. |