There's a phrase you don't hear on a daily basis. But we heard it on Friday night when we saw the Manic Street Preachers play. This is how they described themselves.
I've never been a fan of the Manics. I didn't hate them particularly but I didn't love them and they seemed to inspire that weird obsessive fandom that scares me a bit. So what was I doing watching them on Friday night?
It was a concert at the Royal Festival Hall, part of the Heavenly Forever series. The headline act was Doves, who I do like a lot but what led to us buying tickets was the promise of Very Special Guests. We consulted the list of who was already confirmed for other nights and who had been on the Heavenly label. And jumped to the conclusion that it could only be either The Chemical Brothers or Flowered Up.
So we bought tickets, and then it was announced that it was the Manics. They had released six songs on Heavenly Records before selling out (as they admitted themselves) and so would play those six songs, and those six songs only.
They opened with "Motown Junk" which I didn't recognise from the OH's rendition of it but knew as soon as the band started playing it. They also played "We Her Majesty's Prisoners" which apparently they'd wanted to call "Ceremonial Rape Machine". They ended with "You Love Us" which sounded a lot better than I'd remembered it but perhaps it was because I felt nostalgic.
Doves were excellent, and the first support band Cherry Ghost were pretty good too, but I was still a little disappointed that Flowered Up weren't on.
2 comments:
I'm no more than 50:50 on the Manic Street Preachers, but don't really see how you could be disappointed at their appearance...pretty heavy duty, and a serious band!
Mind you, I'm not that familiar with Flowered Up...must ceck out You Tube!
Flowered Up are quite the opposite - not a serious band at all.
I was only disappointed when I found out it was them - after I'd seen them I was actually pretty impressed.
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