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| Manic Street Preahcers,
Cardiff Millennium Stadium |
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| Live,
Dan Wolff,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F4
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It's hard not to be taken in by the sheer vastness of this huge stadium, the largest of its kind in Europe (54,000 to be precise). Feeder take to the stage at 8:10pm and look overwhelmed as they plough through their familiar songs from both Polythene and Yesterday Went Too Soon albums. So far in their career they always seem to be the bridesmaid and never the bride. Songs such as Day In Day Out, Change and My Perfect Day are pleasent enough but fail to elevete them to much more than that. However, if bands as dull as Travis and Stereophonics can sell a million copies each of their albums, Feeder deserve the same. Hugeness in America can only be a matter of time.
The Super Furry Animals have had a non-stop year of touring and it has recently began to show. In April 1999 they started well enough but soon slopped into auto-pilot seemingly playing as many festivals/countries as possible. Tonight they appear to find their old selves and play a hits set that for some reason starts with intro music from Grandstand. New single Do Or Die is first, followed by old classics Something For The Weekend and God! Show Me Magic.The fantastic Fire In My Heart slows the pace down, as does Demons.The crowd pick it up again towards the end for Calemero, Nite Vision, Ice Hockey Hair and naturally The Man Don't Give A Fuck which closes the set as normal. Hopefully a rest will do them good, but with a Welsh language album, followed by an instrumental dance album (it will be worth the wait), 2000 will be equally as hectic.
The tension could be felt in your stomach in the time leading up to when The Manic Street Preachers take the stage. At 10:45pm they do as Nicky Wire strides on in a white robe, only to be taken off moments later to reveal a pink skirt (Miss Selfridge at a guess) and knee-high socks (who knows!). You Stole The Sun From My Heart is recieved with open arms, swiftly followed by rabid versions of Faster and Everything Must Go. Forthcoming single Masses Against The Classes in easily their finest moment since The Holy Bible in 1994 and deserves to be number one when it is released 10th January. The first surprise of the evening comes when the band throw out a blistering version of Chuck Berrys' Rock N Roll Music which seems to take most people by surprise. There is a rush for the toilet/bar/foodstall/anywhere when the none-too-festive Of Walking Abortion is aired but the final bursts of No Surface, Motown Junk and Motorcycle Emptyness seem a fitting end to their first set and 1999.
At 12:10am, after a short break and the small matter of entering a new millennium, James Dean Bradfield returns to the stage armed with his acoustic guitar and does a fantastic solo version (helped by the crowd) of Your Too Good To Be True, followed by Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky from Everthing Must Go.The rest of the band reappear and Australia from the same album is played with new vigour. They return to their first album, Generation Terrorists, twice with powerful versions of You Love Us and Stay Beautiful, causing Wire to throw his mic stand into the crowd. The closing two songs are predictabally If You Tolerate This and A Design For Life which are drowned out by the now aroused crowd who sing both word-for-word. Wire pushes over his speakers at the end and jumps onto the front of the stage and attempts to smash his bass. After more goes than counted, he manages it and throws the remains to the crowd before disappearing into the shadows. Prehaps not vintage Manics but definitely a night to remember.
31/12/99
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