Still not a Manic Monday!

 

Manic Street Preachers - Ocean Spray

Do you remember that earlier in the year we saw a rather excellent Manic Street Preachers gig at the Royal Albert Hall? I mentioned in that post that we were going to be keeping a close eye for any more gigs that we could make it along to, so I didn't miss a trick when they announced a co-headlining tour with 90's favourites Suede including a show at the O2 at North Greenwich, and nabbed a couple of decent seats for a price which while not cheap, we were content to pay. 

This mural felt almost worthy of being a Manics lyric! 

Obviously as a general rule neither of us would be in London on a Friday, but with the gig in the evening, MrEH rejigged his working week to take him into the office last Friday, while I decided to travel in with him and have a day of general meandering, wandering and perambulating. I started by heading to a pub from what might be described as a "well known budget chain" where I knew I could get a well priced breakfast and a bottomless cup of tea to begin my day - indeed I wrote a couple of blog posts while sitting there to make use of my time. Once rush hour had fully passed I headed for a bus - or actually three buses - and travelled right into central London, close to MrEH's office, in fact, in time for a wander and explore around that area of the City before meeting him for a quick beer at lunchtime at a favourite pub of ours. From there, and having got some lunch, time to visit one of my favourite places to while away a few hours - the British Museum. Funnily enough I'd not been at all until a few years ago, it had never appealed, but I met a friend at the cafe there a a convenient spot to sit and have a cuppa and a natter, and had a quick look around on that occasion, and I've been under the spell of the place ever since, and all the more so since I stumbled across the case with the Lewis Chessmen!

Lewis Chessmen - The British Museum

After a good amble about, I made my way back out and headed for a bus back out towards Greenwich - that journey too ended up using 3 buses, but thanks to the common sense of the TFL "Hopper" fare it only cost me £1.85 - the journey in that morning had come to the same amount in fact. As tempting as it was to find an excuse to use the cablecar, I resisted the temptation in favour of taking the more reliable route time-wise - I did for as far as I can think the first time ever go through the Blackwall Tunnel in a bus though! 

Stunning view of iconic London landmarks!

Once MrEH arrived we made our way in to the O2 - a quick trip to the loo before joining the long but thankfully fast moving queue for entry - very streamlined now since last time I went in - a quick zap of the tickets and then automated scanners take care of routine checks with just random bag checks being carried out - I’ve said for a long while that full bag searches affect women far more than men, as our clothes are less likely to be designed to allow us to put everything in pockets, we are simply more likely to have a bag to be checked, so this felt like a real step forwards. Up then to our seats - high up but front row, albeit that meant rather limited legroom - even for me, MrEH was forced to man-spread whether he wanted to or not! 

Great view from our seats!

The Manics were on stage first, and were every bit as good as ever with their trademark mix of classic hits (think Motorcycle Emptiness, Everything Must Go, You Stole the Sun, your Love Alone, Ocean Spray, Slash’n’Burn, You Love Us AND If you Tolerate this…) mixed with less known stuff, the energy level kept high throughout their 1hr 20minutes or so on stage. Indeed they rattled through 18 tracks in that time, which was pretty impressive! A brief snippet of Bonnie Tyler’s hit Total Eclipse of the Heart was thrown in as a tribute to the Welsh icon who of course died this year - a lovely touch. 

Clever stage backdrop from Suede.

Suede, up second, impressed me far less, I’m afraid. Remembering them from the 90’s I’d been looking forward to seeing them, and indeed MrEH who was quite into them at the time was quite excited at the prospect. Their fans seemed to enjoy the set, but we noticed from mid way through there were a LOT of folk leaving - presumably Manics fans who, like us, felt that their performance was a bit like seeing a not-great support band who had somehow managed to follow up, rather than preceding the main act!  Just two songs I recognised at all - one I can’t recall the name of, the other was of course Beautiful Ones, probably their biggest hit? On the whole I could happily have left after the Manics and still been delighted with my evening! 

Walkway towards the river at the O2

Now we wait and hope for more Manics dates to be announced for next year - there is a hotly anticipated announcement of “something” next week, but whether a tour, an album, a one-off show or something else we don’t yet know! 

Robyn