The success of the “classic album” gig format, where a nominally iconic record is played in its entirety in exchange for a hefty ticket fee, means veteran artists are increasingly being encouraged to look back, possibly because they can’t figure out a way to move forward. But for the Manic Street Preachers, the decision to revisit their caustic, harrowing 1994 masterpiece The Holy Bible – their last LP before the disappearance of guitarist Richey Edwards – coincides with a period of almost unprecedented creativity.
The band’s one-two punch of recent albums – 2013’s stripped-back Rewind the Film and this year’s dreamily Euro-influenced Futurology – accumulated their most admiring reviews in years, with scorching live shows to match. They didn’t need to mark the 20th anniversary of an album that was so demonstrably out-of-step with the first zeitgeist-y stirrings of Britpop that it almost ended the band. It seems more likely they felt they had to.
You could call it a military re-enactment. James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore take to the stage in the mismatched army surplus gear that was the band’s gang uniform of 1994, and perform against the same camouflage netting backdrop. The atmosphere is volatile, the sound cavernous. When there’s a problem with Bradfield’s mic during opener Yes, the audience bellow out the missing lines.
What originally sounded deleteriously bleak and claustrophobic on record gains a crackling new energy, at least half of which emanates from the crowd. There’s a committed moshpit during Of Walking Abortion, and the usually peacocking Wire removes his sunglasses to see what’s going on. An unexpected highlight is Die in the Summertime, newly revealed to be weaponised baggy, while even the deliberately upsetting Intense Humming of Evil is roundly cheered.
Before PCP, the thrashy full stop to the claustrophobic back half of the record, Bradfield belatedly addresses the crowd. “It goes without saying this is for Richey James Edwards,” he says. The fact that they’ll play this brooding, traumatising album in full at Cardiff Castle next year seems bewilderingly odd, but wonderful.
One costume change later, the Manics return with their current full band touring line-up for a breezier set that kicks off with a preening, gleaming Motorcycle Emptiness and concludes with the thumping brace of You Love Us and A Design For Life. These songs are more traditional Manics crowd-pleasers, through intent or familiarity. But as raucous as they sound, it’s the alienating pulse of The Holy Bible that sticks.
• At Albert Hall, Manchester. Box office: 0871-220 0260. 10-11 December, then touring.
