• Manic Street Preachers @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    May 14, 2019 - By 

    It’s been a little over twenty years since Manic Street Preachers’ landmark fifth record, This is my Truth, Tell me Yours, solidified a somewhat stratospheric ‘second act’; a manic metamorphosis from a politically punctuated punk four piece into the enduring ruminative band we know today. Back then, the Manics were just about coping with the tragic disappearance of their guitarist Richey Edwards in 1995, and fresh from the meteoric success of the sweepingly superabundant sounds of their following album, Everything Must Go. Despite being the first to be recorded timidly without him, half of it contained his lyrics. The viscerally…

  • Manic Street Preachers Set For Dublin Return

    October 22, 2018 - By 

    Four years on from playing the Dame Street venue, Manic Street Preachers will play Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on Sunday, May 12th, 2019. The show will mark the 21st time the Welsh alt-rock heroes have played the capital, with their first show in the city being March, 1992 as part of the Generation Terrorists tour. This new date will come off the back of the 20th anniversary reissue of the band’s fifth album, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. Tickets go on sale at 9am from Friday, October 26th, priced €54.50.

  • BBC Biggest Weekend @ Titanic Slipways, Belfast – Friday

    May 28, 2018 - By 

    The first signs of 6 Music’s leg of the Biggest Weekender have been appearing at venues all over Belfast this last week. Gigs, seminars, panels and outside broadcasts cropping up daily, heralding the 2 days at Titanic Slipways. For day 1 of festivities, the city, bathed in uncharacteristically glorious weather, conspires to show off just when everyone happens to be paying attention. As the flow of people moving through the city and over the Lagan grows, a Cup Final atmosphere begins to build, smiles and easy conversation with anyone willing to respond are the order of the day, and in…

  • Manic Street Preachers – Resistance Is Futile

    April 25, 2018 - By 

    It’s strange to think that of all the bands who could have lasted long enough to unquestionably become an institution, it was the Manic Street Preachers who claimed the honour. The Welsh punk rockers began their career with middle fingers firmly erected and a depth of knowledge to match their vicious tongues. This is a band who on their first album had Public Enemy’s The Bomb Squad and porn star Traci Lords sitting effortlessly alongside Slyvia Plath, Confucius, and Phillip Larkin. They claimed that would sell “16 million copies” of their debut and then break up in the purest distillation…

  • Manic Street Preachers @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    December 14, 2014 - By 

    You sometimes have to wonder if people do these “Let’s play the album everyone likes” shows in order to destroy the album. If you’ve made one truly significant album in your lifetime, fair deuce to you, but after a while it must feel like a noose. If you were to do such a show, how would you do it? Could you do it in such a way that puts this awful beauty that hangs over you to rest, while not screwing over the people who’ve connected themselves to the record and provided the opportunity for you to perform this show?…

  • Manic Street Preachers announce Dublin show

    September 23, 2014 - By 

    It may only be little over a year that the Manics last visited these shores, but their return has got us very excited indeed. It’s twenty years since the release of the legendary The Holy Bible album and to celebrate the occasion the band will the album in its entirety at The Olympia Theatre on December 13. Tickets are priced at €39.05 and go on sale this Friday, September 26. Check out the video for ‘She Is Suffering’ below:  

  • Manic Street Preachers – Futurology

    July 16, 2014 - By 

    Twenty-five years is a long time to be doing anything, especially making music. One of the biggest problems facing a group lasting this long is that of progression. Where do you go? It comes down to a simple choice: keep pushing forward or stagnate and reiterate. There are pros and cons for both. If you keep advancing you could discover new styles and sounds and be a modern 1970s Bowie but you could also look ridiculous and fail spectacularly like 1990s Bowie. With repetition you end up tying your hands behind your back and locking yourself into a single inescapable…

  • Horror songs: The Intense Humming Of Evil

    October 30, 2013 - By 

    There is no denying that the Manic Street Preachers’ third album, The Holy Bible, is a distressing listen. The album represents some of the final days of Richey James Edwards and gives us an insight into a mind that is as unsettling as it is compelling. Edwards penned songs about self-destruction, societal breakdown and the holocaust with a level of poeticism seldom seen in rock music. This poeticism gives way to terror on more than one occasion and is best typified with the gut-curdling holocaust themed ‘The Intense Humming Of Evil’. We begin with the sound of clanging metal and gaseous release. We begin…

  • Manic Street Preachers – Ulster Hall, Belfast

    September 24, 2013 - By 

    Manic Street Preachers are the great survivors of British rock music. In an era where the touring landscape is awash with bands of their vintage (and younger) on money-spinning reunion tours, the Manics keep racking up the albums, the tours and the years – 27 at the last count. And yet here they are, packing out the Ulster Hall again as they tour to promote their eleventh studio album, Rewind The Film – yet another top five chart hit. Given that album’s delicate nature – all acoustic guitars, slow tempos and snatches of brass – it’s not surprising that tonight’s…

  • Manic Street Preachers – Rewind The Film

    September 20, 2013 - By 

    This must be said as a precursor to this whole review. I love the Manic Street Preachers. I love almost everything that they have done; I’m the type of fan who thinks that Lifeblood isn’t a catastrophic  failure and who has literally spent 11 straight hours listening to their entire discography. Needless to say that I am somewhat bias toward the Welsh trio. But even with this level bias in favour of the band, I say with the utmost integrity and honest that their eleventh and latest release, Rewind The Film, is undeniably one of the best albums the band has ever produced and ranks as…