Manic Street Preachers
London Astoria
30th May, 2007

View: balcony seat, stage-left

For 95 minutes, the Manics had the masses in the palm of their hands (bolstered to 10, thanks to rhythm guitarist and keyboardist/ saxophonist). But while the band has dispensed with former arenasize glories, their focus is on less ‘easy’ numbers, interspersed with enough of their classic singalong anthems to retain their momentum. Hence, during the 23-song blitz, there was hardly a let-up, Motorcycle Emptiness kicking things into gear almost from the off. A glitch during the intro to Everything Must Go was remedied a couple of songs later, raising expectations. If You Tolerate This… got the communal singing lifting the roof and, the post-Iraq commentary of Send Away The Tigers demonstrated their ever-keen political acumen. A couple of acoustic spots from James Dean Bradfield allowed Nicky to don the customary silly skirt, JD donning a Flying V to emphasise their undeniable heavy rock credentials for the ecstatic You Love Us and You Stole The Sun From My Heart. A Design For Life closed out a down-sized but still spot-on show.

Reviewed by Tim Jones
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