Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather.
For ages, MANIC STREET PREACHERS were shaping up to be nothing more than a SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK for the 90s. They had an attitude problem (they thought they were punks), a clothes problem (70s seditionaries' chic) and, in many people's eyes this was the worst, they were Welsh. No band of any significance ever came from Wales, man! THE ALARM? Come on...
But then the Preachers released a stonking slice of rifferama with their debut double album Generation Terrorists. And now they go on the road for the first time as a serious band. One with confidence, not just arrogance, and this time with the material to back it up.
A triumphant, loud, joyous opener "You Love Us" is the band at their swaggering, last-gang-in-town best. Although they look like THE CLASH, they sound more like GUNS N' ROSES, and slip in an effortless "It Ain't Easy" into the set, without the join showing. Which makes the spitting pogoing crowd seem somewhat odd. Until, that is, you realise that bassist Nicky Wire thinks he is the ghost of Sid Vicious ("A wimp who couldn't take his drugs" - copyright Phil Mogg). Far punkier people than me think the atmosphere is reminiscent of the PISTOL's final show at the Winterland in San Francisco. At the end of one song Wire smashes his bass into the audience, a somewhat theatrical gesture because, judged by the way it shattered, any one who got in the way would have been killed.
The band are driven by drummer Sean Moore and singer guitarist James Dean Bradfield. Richey, the pretty one, the image of the band and the one who had to take a trip to hospital after slashing "4 Real" on his arm to prove a point to a journalist, doesn't actually play the rhythm guitar. Yeah, it's swung low on his body, he flails away at it every so often, but his musical contribution is somewhere between zero and ANDREW RIDGELY. With, of course, the occasional chord.
Wire harangues the Oh-so-cool-0h-so-record-company audience sitting upstairs in a voice that's not so much from "the valleys" as the Valley, London SE7, with a hint of Detroit thrown in. His disaffected youth character is less a frightening apparition than a recalcitrant schoolboy, all sulks and pouts. Bradfield, on the other hand, comes across as genuinely menacing. like he'd kill you should you cross him, and the end of the gig is genuinely 'scary.' While thousands of silver strips fall from the ceiling, Bradfield dives headlong into the crowd, the bouncers look out of their depth, the siren wails over the PA - what is going on? Is that machine gun fire? Oh God, we're going to die!
Stunning. Like punk probably happened.
Chris Collingwood
Pix: Dave Clark
Chris Collingwood
Pix: Dave Clark
Riff Raff
April 1992
SET LIST:
You Love Us
Nat West-Barclays-Midlands-Lloyds
Democracy Coma
Born to End
Love's Sweet Exile
Repeat (UK)
It's So Easy (Guns N’ Roses cover)
Slash 'n' Burn
Crucifix Kiss
Sorrow 16
Little Baby Nothing
Stay Beautiful
Motown Junk
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