Manic Street Preachers, Glasgow review: 'curating a Manics setlist is quite the art'

You are never more than a few minutes away from a hearty anthem when the Manic Street Preachers roll into town, writes Fiona Shepherd

Manic Street Preachers, Barrowland, Glasgow ★★★★

School nights are banished in the latest Manic Street Preachers touring model. The angry young men from Blackwood are now middle-aged and mindful of their audience of peers so it’s weekend dates only on their current outing as an act of courtesy to the fans who have grown up with them.

The result, on the first of a two-night residency in Glasgow, was a feelgood show, often in spite of the hard matter of their lyrics, from She Is Suffering to La Tristesse Durera, named for Vincent Van Gogh’s dying words. Party on!

Curating a Manics setlist is quite the art, with a 35-year catalogue to draw on.

On this occasion, there were the less embedded tracks from latest album Critical Thinking, included Dear Stephen, their fragrant missive to Morrissey (“please come back to us”) alongside deeper cuts such as Peeled Apples.

But you were never more than a few minutes away from the next hearty anthem. It was hard not to be charmed by You Stole the Sun from My Heart or stirred by Motorcycle Emptiness, with frontman James Dean Bradfield on guitar hero duties. The greatest of these, A Design for Life, was slipped in without fanfare in the middle of the set, then drenched in a confetti shower with the audience singing themselves hoarse.

Bassist Nicky Wire stepped forward for one of his occasional lead vocals (“don't worry, it's only one,” he assured), building a halting rendition of Echo & the Bunnymen's Ocean Rain into his affectingly raw performance while Bradfield's exercised his love of Big Country with a burst of their plaintive hit Chance before the rip-roaring Motown Junk (with the controversial line “I laughed when Lennon got shot” left to the crowd) and the world’s only Spanish Civil War-inspired charttopper, If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next.