20 years ago today life changed forever

Note: I began writing this piece earlier in the week and planned to publish it sooner but was unfortunately sidelined for a few days with some Covid vaccine side effects.  Whilst I’m eternally grateful for receiving the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, it was best to rest up for a couple of days until the aches and fever subsided.  For those who are yet to be vaccinated; the side effects are nothing to worry about – they just made me more inclined to pop paracetamol, binge Rick Stein’s BBC series on India and watch England unconvincingly beat Poland in the World Cup qualifiers than turn my attentions to creative writing.

30^th March 2021, Bari

20 years ago today my life changed and it would never be the same again.  After several months of anticipation and numerous phone conversations between anxious parents, my old pal Mike and I saw the Manic Street Preachers live at Brixton Academy, South London – my first ‘proper’ gig (I’m not counting Slade’s performance at a guitar show at the Birmingham NEC the year before).  Live music has been a huge part of me ever since – I’ve played over 350 gigs in various groups myself and whilst I cannot put an exact figure on it, I estimate that I’ve seen well over 1,000 artists perform in the subsequent two decades.

The Manics onstage at Wembley Arena with The Anchoress. May 2018.

My school friend (and early bandmate) Mike ‘got’ the band’s appeal too and soon the Manics had usurped Nirvana as our favourite band and were a major influence on an early line-up of our teenage band Felix Mandelson.  We bought all of the band’s older albums and it’s safe to say that the band soon held deity-like status for us.  When we spotted a red full-page ad written in block capitals in a copy of NME in early 2001 announcing a UK tour for their latest album Know Your Enemy, we knew we had to get tickets to one of the London shows – two consecutive nights at Brixton Academy. 

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The back of a bootleg tour t-shirt I bought on the pavement outside Brixton Academy and the Spanish Civil War that inspired the number one hit single ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’.

Our parents were initially wary as we were only 13.  Whilst I had an older sister living in Bermondsey in South London, Brixton rightly or wrongly, had a reputation as a dangerous and lawless place and to my emerging musical knowledge, Brixton Academy was a venue more favoured by the dance music fraternity – The Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim had both recently played huge shows there.  However; eventually it was decided that we could go and after phoning the venue to ask for more information about the show, a very helpful member of staff at the Academy told my parents that it “was an ideal place for a first gig” and even explained in detail about the “sloping floor that means you get a good view wherever you stand”.  Thank you to whoever was manning the venue’s phone lines that day.  

“We live in urban hell, we destroy rock and roll’

For the unfamiliar; I will try to sum up the Manics’ story. Summarising 30 years of history in a few paragraphs is no easy task.  Formed in the mid-1980s in the South Wales mining town of Blackwood in Gwent, two cousins James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore (they were actually more like brothers after Sean moved in with the Bradfields following his parents’ acrimonious divorce) formed a band with school friend and aspiring footballer Nick Jones (known as Nicky Wire due to his gangly frame) and later the slightly older and fiercely intellectual Richey Edwards.  Spending much of their formative years ensconced in James and Sean’s bedroom, the friends devoured Situationist literature, leftfield films and a whole host of musical influences ranging from Guns N’ Roses and Rush to Magazine and Wire to Public Enemy and James’ love of the melodies of Motown Records to C86-era obscurities like The June Brides and Tallulah Gosh.  

The Manics (left-to-right); James Dean Bradfield, Richey Edwards, Nicky Wire, Sean Moore) outside the gates to Buckingham Palace. January 1991.

Their nihilistic early singles ‘Suicide Alley’ (1988, self-financed) and ‘New Art Riot’ (1990, Damaged Goods) were massively out of place against the cultural backdrop of the ecstasy-fuelled acid house scene and the so-called Second Summer of Love of ’89 but got the band noticed.  A press release written by Edwards from this time claims “We are as far away from anything in the ’80s as possible” and on stage the band would wear white shirts that they stencilled with slogans such as ‘Culture of Destruction’, ‘Useless Generation’, ‘Lonesome Aesthetic’ and ‘Kill Yourself’.  The Manics signed initially to Heavenly Recordings where they released the two classic singles ‘Motown Junk’ and ‘You Love Us’ before moving to Sony imprint Columbia Records on a long-term album deal.  The Manics were one of the first bands signed by a certain Rob Stringer who has since gone onto become Chairman of Sony Music Group and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment.  They remain close friends to this day and this relationship may well be central to the band’s longevity on the label.

‘Motown Junk’ live at the Marquee Club, Soho in 1991. This video is notable for the dozens of stage divers who invade the band’s performance!

The Manics released their debut album Generation Terrorists in 1992, an 18-track opus of incendiary lyrics and political polemic set against squealing guitars and a very American-sounding stadium rawk production.  It did have some brilliant moments though namely, the precociously ambitious ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’, ‘Little Baby Nothing’ and ‘Stay Beautiful’.  The band’s public persona became more set in stone during this era too; singer / guitarist Bradfield and drummer Moore were the musical masterminds who wrote the songs and rhythm guitarist Edwards and bassist Wire the outspoken ‘Glamour Twins’ who drafted the lyrics, gave interviews and dictated the band’s aesthetic.  The band claimed they had “made the greatest rock album ever” and that they would split up after selling 16 million copies.  29 years and 12 albums later, the band are still together.

The official video to ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’, filmed in Tokyo in 1992 and an unofficial influence on the future Sofia Coppola film ‘Lost in Translation’.

1993’s follow-up Gold Against The Soul, recorded at the sumptuous residential studio Hook End Manor was a fairly forgettable, more radio-friendly affair but the Manics hit their creative peak with 1994’s The Holy Bible.  Recorded cheaply in an industrial estate behind Cardiff Central train station and containing a set of dark existential lyrics from Richey Edwards (themes included suicide, anorexia, prostitution and the holocaust), the album is a difficult album to listen to but is pretty much flawless from start to finish and remains the group’s creative benchmark.  However, Edwards’ mental health had begun to unravel as early as 1991 when he carved the words ‘4 Real’ into his arm with a razor blade in front of the then-NME journalist Steve Lamacq who had been questioning the group’s integrity and he went onto be hospitalised on more than one occasion for depression, anorexia and alcoholism. 

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) and 2.) The band’s regulation military uniforms of The Holy Bible-era. 3.) Jenny Saville’s artwork for The Holy Bible album 4.) Richey Edwards following the notorious ‘4 Real’ incident. 5.) James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore onstage at the London Astoria in December 1994 – Richey’s last ever show with the band.

On 1^st February 1995, Edwards vanished from his hotel room in Bayswater, West London on the eve of the band’s US tour to promote The Holy Bible.  He left behind a book of lyrics (these would finally be used on the band’s 2009 Journal for Plague Lovers album) and some mysterious photos of foreign-looking buildings.  His Vauxhall Cavalier was found abandoned near the old Severn Bridge at Aust Services but he had also regularly been withdrawing £200 every day from his bank account in the weeks leading up to the disappearance.  Richey Edwards has never been found and sadly both of his parents have since passed away without knowing what happened to their son. 

In the 2019 book ‘Withdrawn Traces’, Sara Hawys Roberts and Leon Noakes (with the full cooperation of Edwards’ sister Rachel) made a convincing argument that Richey had staged his disappearance; he had long been fascinated by recluses and self-imposed exile and had talked about wanting to spend time in Israel, living on a kibbutz. Whatever happened to Richey Edwards; one thing is clear; he did not want to be found.

After consulting Richey’s parents, the band made the difficult decision to continue as a three-piece (Edwards’ main artistic contribution was his lyrics and image – he didn’t usually contribute musically to albums and his guitar was turned down low in the mix at live shows).  The sloganeering shirts of yesteryear and military uniforms of The Holy Bible-era were gone and they returned with a more palatable image and the Phil Spector-inspired Everything Must Go album in 1996.  The lead single ‘A Design for Life’ became one of the decade’s most famous and recognisable songs although it’s chorus lyric of “We only want to get drunk” was frequently wrongly interpreted by lager lads as a drinking anthem, when it fact it was a critical comment on how the powers that be often looked down sneeringly at the working class.  The song opened with the line “Libraries gave us power” which was inspired by an inscription above the former library in Pillgwenlly, Newport and fittingly the Manics opened Cardiff’s new library in 2009.

The release of Everything Must Go finally resulted in mainstream success for the new three-piece Manics and both the album and its ’98 follow-up This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours were certified multi-platinum, spawned numerous Top 10 singles and saw the band pick up BRIT Awards on two separate occasions for Best British Group and Best British Album.  The band saw in the year 2000 with a huge show at Cardiff’s newly-built Millennium Stadium in front of 60,000 fans and bizarrely, they also knocked Westlife off the top spot to claim the first UK number one single of the new millennium with the abrasive standalone track ‘The Masses Against The Classes’.  

However, mainstream success and being the new darlings of the music industry sat uncomfortably with the Manics and This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours’ successor Know Your Enemy, released on 19^th March 2001 was a challenging, sprawling, 16-track album taking in a myriad of genres and influences.  There was primal rock reminiscent of The Stooges (‘Found That Soul’), sunshine ‘60s pop (‘So Why So Sad’), lo-fi (‘Wattsville Blues’), a futuristic take on punk (‘Intravenous Agnostic’ and ‘Dead Martyrs’) and even disco (‘Miss Europa Disco Dancer’) – Diana Ross’ ‘My Old Piano’ was the first single James ever bought, after all.  

Jeremy Deller’s video for ‘Found That Soul’.

The artwork, created by Welsh painter Neale Howells featured a blood-stained, lyric-covered wall and throughout the album were lyrical references to leftist politics and in particular, the United States’ relationship with the outside world.  The album contained a paean to Elián González (‘Baby Elian’), the Cuban child who had been the subject of an intense custody battle involving the US and Cuban governments, a tribute to the singer and Civil Rights activist Paul Robeson, who also spent time in Cuba (‘Let Robeson Sing’), a track featuring My Bloody Valentine guitarist Kevin Shields called ‘Freedom of Speech Won’t Feed My Children’ and even a curious cover of ‘We Are all Bourgeois’ by ‘80s far-left indie group McCarthy.  

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Neale Howells’ artwork for Know Your Enemy and the cover to ‘The Masses Against The Classes’ – the first UK number one single of the new millennium.

This album felt like it was the Manics flexing their creative muscle again, reconnecting with their more radical roots and perhaps alienating some of their newer, more casual fans in the process.  This sentiment was reinforced when it was announced that the group would be launching the album with a show at the Karl Marx Theatre in Havana, Cuba becoming the first Western group to play in the country since Billy Joel 20 years earlier.  The Brixton Academy show on 30^th March was only their fourth show since the monumental Havana gig and it’s against this backdrop that we’ll return to that evening in 2001 in the next instalment… 

Brixton Academy, Stockwell Road, South London.