Just another Manic(s)...Thursday!

 

There are a few bands or artists that I occasionally do a quick search to see if they are doing any live gigs that we might be able to get to - and for a long time one of those bands has been the brilliant Manic Street Preachers. We both love their music and have seen them live before - albeit not for a number of years as the planets just haven't aligned - either the dates were wrong, or the location was wrong, or they were playing as part of a festival and the cost was wrong. Sometimes none of those things were wrong but I just found out about the dates too late to get tickets. Imagine my delight then if you will when I searched a few weeks ago and spotted an upcoming gig at the end of this month, in London, with seats available from just £40, AND with those particular tickets still available too! Needless to say, I pounced!

Support act The Joy Formidable 

That is why on Thursday evening after we both finished work, we met in a favourite pub in Hammersmith for a quick beer before making our way to the Royal Albert Hall for a concert in the Teenage Cancer Trust series - as it turned out, the 150th such concert to have been held at the venue - indeed we were given a cute little badge confirming this! The Albert Hall is fabulous, and the chosen tickets were in the rather unique "choir seats" up behind the stage, and flanking the pipes of the venue's magnificent organ. Ours were in the very back row too - a great location for the sort of gig where you feel you might want to stand up and have a bit of a dance! 

We arrived and found our way to the seats shortly ahead of the support act coming on - after navigating the venue's  rather idiosyncratic signage which lead to us entering the row from the wrong end...I got the impression that everyone else at our end of the row had also done the same thing too! Support was a Welsh 3-piece called the Joy Formidable who were extremely good - although they would have been better with their backing tracks toned down just a little for my money - musically they were superb but at times it was slightly tricky to actually hear how good! 

A short interval gave the opportunity to visit the loo, and there was a short film about the charity shown to those who had seats they could see the screen from (not us!) as well as the chance to applaud some of those that the charity have helped - they were being given a backstage experience to remember judging by the smiles as they walked onto the stage! And then it was time for the main part of the evening as the Manics took the stage! 

They didn’t disappoint -a mix of plenty of hits, some older less often heard stuff, and some covers, including The Cure’s Close to Me (dedicated to concert series curator Robert Smith). You Love Us was dedicated to Richey Edwards - the band’s former lyricist and rhythm guitarist who went missing in 1995, they have never replaced him and still clearly consider him to be part of the band, which is rather lovely. Inevitability from where we were sitting you get a mix of sound which isn’t quite what the rest of the auditorium hears - but it still sounded great, we certainly wouldn’t hesitate to get tickets for those seats again. James Dean Bradfield made sure that he remembered there were people sitting up there too - with a hands up salute to the seats on his first guitar change after coming onto the stage, and turning to play towards us at regular intervals through the gig too - Bassist Nicky Wire did similarly on the other side.  

All in all  brilliant gig for a very reasonable price indeed. We will now revert to occasional checks for more live stuff -and the hope that the date/location/price factors all align again soon! We’ve also agreed that we fancy going to see more stuff at the Albert Hall, and will definitely be keeping an eye for the Teenage Cancer Trust series again next year. 

Robyn