Manic Street Preachers - Funtime Tour of The Holy Bible

[Rob McCow]

The tour kicks off on May 8 and bassist Nicky Wire promises "Springsteen-esque long sets, working class rage, make-up and dumb punk fun".
The dates are as follows:

Cambridge Corn Exchange (May 8)
Leeds University (9)
Cardiff University Great Hall (11, 12)
Glasgow Barrowlands (14)
Newcastle Academy (15)
Sheffield Octagon (17)
Carlisle Sands Centre (18)
Preston Guildhall (20)
Wolverhampton Civic Hall (21)
Norwich UEA (23)
Nottingham Rock City (24)
Llandudno Venue Cymru (26)
Manchester Apollo (27)
London Forum (29)
London Astoria (30)
London Shepherds Bush Empire (31)
Bristol Colston Hall (June 2)
Truro Hall (3)
Southampton Guildhall (5)
Brighton Dome (6)
Leicester De Montfort Hall (8)
Reading Hexagon (9)

Tickets go on sale at 10am on Friday (February 9).

The exciting follow-up to Lifeblood is apparently called something about Tigers or some nonsense. Should be better than their recent solo efforts!

It's a huge tour. Three London dates and Reading too. We might actually consider the Reading one if it's not too expensive (eg above 25). Anyone else interested or excited?

[Pip Madeley]

I might consider the Manchester gig, I'd quite like to see them live.

[Paul Monk]

I'm strangely not at all excited. They should have called it a day ages ago.

[Dave Tudor]

I have to agree. I saw them in 1998 and they were amazing. Saw them again in 2004, on the 'Lifeblood' tour and they seemed bored, just going through the motions, even. And the album itself wasn't all that good.

Not sure I can be bothered, but the fact they seem to be playing smaller venues might make it interesting. I'll think about it.

[WhiteCrow]

They're back? I thought they'd all gone the way of Richey ...

[Dave Lewis]

I think that it's been too long since I saw them... twelve years, is it? I'm tempted by Rock City, I have to admit. No matter how shit Lifeblood was, the DVD footage on the Everything Must Go re-issue definitely reminded me how much I love this band, irrespective of how much crap they've littered recent albums with. I'm a fan, I'll always be a fan, and I'd love to see them doing all the songs from the good, bad, and ugly parts of their back catalogue.

I know they'll never be as good as i want 'em to be, but...

[Paul Monk]

Last time I saw them was their greatest hits tour and they were very good then. They played mostly older stuff and just seemed to have a renewed energy,although some of the Generation Terrorists stuff seemed a bit silly.

[Dave Lewis]

That's the thing, isn't it? I can happily envisage enjoying the Manics doing anything from Everything Must Go onwards, but seeing the old gits doing Motown Junk or Stay Beautiful would be a dreadful prospect.

Or maybe it's that I'm as much an old fart as they are, so I'd be depresseed to find myself singing along with 'em, wondering where the time had gone. Ah, to hell with it... I had no problem seeing New Order last year... in fact, I ****ing loved it, and all they did were Joy Division songs. I've changed my own mind through the course of this post... I insist upon seeing the Manics this time round, and if I find myself singing along with stuff that I enjoyed fifteen years ago, I won't be embarrassed with it at all - I'd probably find it more humiliating to hear myself joining in with So Why So Sad or The Love Of Richard Nixon...

[Milky Tears]

I'll go to the Barrowlands gig if they promise to perform 'Found That Soul'!

[Dave Lewis]

I exist in a place
A self-made vacuum
But still stranded here
With all the scum
So clean - so lost - so beautiful

I'd join in a singalong with that... I never noticed 'till now that I actually like the lyrics... shame that the music is such a dismal, tuneless, dirge.

I think I'll pop along to Barrowlands and leap on the stage, insisting that I should sing the Traci Lords part of Little Baby Nothing.

[Milky Tears]

'Little Baby Nothing' is one of my favourites.

#You are pure, you are snow
We are the useless sluts that they mould
Rock 'n' roll is our epiphany
Culture, alienation, boredom and despair


There's a bit about lollipops as well, isn't there? What more do you need?

[Dave Tudor]

Last time I saw them was their greatest hits tour and they were very good then. They played mostly older stuff and just seemed to have a renewed energy,although some of the Generation Terrorists stuff seemed a bit silly.

Was that about 2002? I wanted to see them on that tour, but missed it.

In 2004, they mainly played stuff from 'Lifeblood', which had only just been released, and 'The Holy Bible', the 10th anniversary edition of which had also just been released. Now, as good as it is to hear the Manics performing most of their darkest album, the fact that they were basically plugging a reissue was, for me, not what the Manics are about. Their hearts didn't seem to be in it, and it ranks as perhaps the most disappointing concert I've ever been to.

Oh, and it didn't help that the support act were Razorlight, who I thought were bloody awful.

[Paul Monk]

Yes 2002. And we missed Razorlight cos we came late, on purpose.
I accidentally took a pen knife into the venue as well. They didn't do a search on me but did search my sister's bag.

I'd love to go to one of these gigs with Dave Lewis as well. He's made me change my mind.

[Si Hunt]

I got into them with "This Is My Truth", an album I still like a lot. But the follow-up got AWFUL reviews so I didn't bother with it. I've not heard anything since that's made me want to be a fan again, though JDB's solo album sounded quite good. I'd possibly get that if it was 3.

Si.

[Dave Lewis]

Springsteen-esque long sets, working class rage, make-up and dumb punk fun"

Or to put it another way, playing extended rock-out versions of the popular hits, Nicky swearing a lot, Nicky looking like a vampire, and Nicky making a mistake in every song.

[Dave Lewis]

I'd love to go to one of these gigs with Dave Lewis as well. He's made me change my mind.

Maybe I'll have to come to Lahndahn to see them... I love the Shepherd's Bush Empire...

[Paul Monk]

We could well have a date! What could be better than two old jaded Manics fans getting together to pretend that they are 19 again and can still fit into their white Levi's.

[Dave Lewis]

I don't know about the white Levi's but I could dig out an old blouse and daub on the mascara on again...

[Rob McCow]

I don't know about the white Levi's but I could dig out an old blouse and daub on the mascara on again...

You'd look very out of place going to a Manics gig like that. There are none of your sort left.

[Pip Madeley]

Hang around for G.A.Y at the Astoria though.

[Dave Lewis]

You'd look very out of place going to a Manics gig like that. There are none of your sort left.

I was reminscing earlier tonight with an acquaintance of mine about the Leicester Uni gig on the GT tour in 1992... I think he was confused about whether he was there or not, but I know I was! I was neither bloused nor mascara-ed... in fact, I was probably wearing some dreadful check shirt monstrosity, and I had loads of hair in a ponytail. I was probably the most un-Manic of the fans there... but I do remember getting up onstage for stage-diving, with a bloke in a Carter t-shirt, around about the time the plugs got pulled 'cos the Union guys didn't like the "f*ck Queen and country" sentiments of Repeat.

Ah, halcyon days.

Hang around for G.A.Y at the Astoria though.

I think I'd wow everyone with my Artful Dodger chic.

[Rob McCow]

around about the time the plugs got pulled 'cos the Union guys didn't like the "f*ck Queen and country" sentiments of Repeat.

See! Who'd pull the plug on the Manics for outrageous behaviour these days?

Fans of good music?

[Paul Monk]

I have a feeling I have a bootleg of that Leicester Gig. I'll have to have a look. About time I moved my Manics bootlegs from tape to cd.

[Dave Lewis]

I realised earlier tonight that I thought that the GT tour was the last time I saw the Manics... I forgot Reading in 1994! The Holy Bible DVD doesn't do the gig justice! Ridiculously, the moment during Revol (I think) where the young lady decides to bare her bosoms... I remember that happening there and then, when it was displayed upon the big screens.

That's not my only memory of said gig, y'understand... (ahem)...

[Rob McCow]

So were they the two best acts on the main stage at Reading 94?

I've missed the Manics almost religiously over the years. Twice I've been at a festival where they've been playing and gone to see someone else instead. At V99 we went to see James Brown on the second stage. At Glastonbury 200and something I was eating a belgian waffle when I heard the strains of 'This Is Yesterday' drifting out from the Pyramid Stage. I really felt that I had missed something there.

But I did see them at their 'Homecoming' gig at St.David's Hall in Cardiff. My brother won tickets to see them which was great, except that we live in Watford and the concert was on a Tuesday. Still, it gave us time to listen to their entire output up to Know Your Enemy in the car on the way. A very good concert, we even spotted ourselves when it was broadcast on Channel 4. No bosoms though and no-one cut the power.