Last year when I bought Send Away The Tigers, I knew from the start this was Manics comeback album.Armed with 8 albums, you can be sure if you attend a Manics gig, it be money worth.
To be frank, I was a little under the weather prior to the gig. With all the bad news on retrenchments and dark clouds looking over the world, dont think it was realy a good time for me to be in a gig.
But boy I was wrong. After Vertical Rush, an indie band from Singapore, Manics Street Preachers came charging right at us with Motorcycle Emptiness spot on at 9am. For a 90 minutes gig, this gig is certainly for fans and non fans of Manics.
With James Dean Bradfield on vocals, unmistakenly you can feel his powerful chord blasting its way through and stretching it sky high with his falsetto. And he moves and dances with ease, striking a few poses and moves which will put any other younger performers to shame. After Motorcycle Emptiness, La Tristsessa Durera was up next. There was simply no turning back that night. Manics promised the fans that they will do at least each song from every albums. Suprisingly they didnt do Indian Summer. Australia was also missing from the setlist.
The one that really got the fans wild was Design For Life. I personally like Masses Against The Classes. It really fits into current political landscape we are witnessing in Asia, but that be another story to tell.
They also did a cover of Umbrella, me and Kim looked at each other stunned not sure what to make out of it. But they did justice with that song. Your Love Alone Is Not Enough sounds weird without Nina Persson on the other end. Same goes for Little Baby Nothing where the studio version has female vocals on the chorus.
Fans were treated with 2 accoustic performance by the lead, The Everlasting simply just blows my mind away. Its like guitar, a man's heart and a man's voice. He asked the fans to go easy with him. And so we did. The crowd was all silent when he played both songs.
Ocean Spray was a pleasant suprise as well with Manics strutting their guitars with the saxophone playing on the other end. Manics interacted alot with the crowd, something which I find other bands are lacking.
And to my suprise, there was no encore that night. Yes you heard me. No encore. They ended the night with If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next. As I was leaving the arena, many still stayed back, maybe they were hoping for an encore. An encore that didnt come. Maybe I missed it, but I doubt so.
And yes, there were so much more people at Manics gig versus Ash gig. If I were to rate, this concert on a scale of 1 to 10, I would have given it a 8 points. 1 minus point for not having Nina, and another minus point for no Indian Summer and encore.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment