Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Time has only has its own void to fill when you realise that a decade has gone past, when the thought of a great concert in the city by one of the most proficient, unambiguous and staunchly determined groups of their era, becomes once more a biting and tenacious reality.
Time is its own master, something will happen when Time suggests it should and with the Manic Street Preachers finally returning to Liverpool, to a place in which gave them their self confessed inspirations when they were young teenage lads in South Wales. Time obviously conceded that Liverpool, the first stop on the British leg on the new tour which celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the album Everything Must Go, was ripe, almost full term pregnant, with anticipation and deserved the rippling muscle of honest observance that the Manic Street Preachers bring with their unyielding and loyal music.
Time may have allowed a decade to pass but something’s never change and rather than hinder or curtail the emotions of the audience inside the Echo Arena, the beat was palpable, even before a guitar was played in anger or in defining cool, the beat of the relentless, almost majestic, was to be heard; 20 years since it first propelled the band to the top of the tree and allowed two decades to fly past with stunning album after creative ear catching recording. Everything Must Go was more like everything must return, everything must be recognised for the significance that it was and the crowd at the Echo Arena recognised that silent pledge from the band and went beautifully berserk and bounced as if the band had only been away a matter of months.
With the whole of Everything Must Go being played out, including the superb Design For Life and the riveting Australia the crowd were given the briefest of respites before James Dean Bradfield returned to give a gorgeous acoustic version of Tsunami to the assembled and the whole band sparked the night off again with energetic zeal through a second set which contained songs such as Motorcycle Emptiness, Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, Roses In Hospital and the phenomenal (It’s Not War) Just The End Of Love, all perfectly delivered, all greeted with enthusiasm of the highest order and carried out with dramatic dynamism.
Time can sometimes be cruel but it is often rewarding if patience can be sought; patience in waiting for one of the seminal bands of the 1990s and beyond is worth it and note for note, song for song, those who witnessed the return of the Manic Street Preachers to Liverpool, the memory will live long and hard. An excellent night of music, time rewarded.
Ian D. Hall