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Old 30-07-2019, 22:28
starfucker starfucker is offline
Knowlede Is Power
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 1,051
I fail to see the issue with "festival setlists" when they're playng a festival. Of course they're gonna smash out the hits. Imagine if you'd never seen them and they were playing a festival near you and they didn't play ADFL or Tolerate or ME, you'd feel a bit gutted. Obviously most people on here have seen them countless times and have heard those songs live many times.

It is nice to get the odd rarity for the hardcore fans, but look what happened when they knocked out Horses Under Starlight on the EMG20 tour. Everyone went to the bar.

Festival highlights for me were Glastonbury 1999 when they had to stop partway through Yes due to crowd crushing then came back and started it again - it meant I got to see part of, and then all of, my favourite Manics song. Also that night, after the performance, one of my mates (not really into the band at the time) was asking, "What was that one with the mad piano intro?" (Prologue To History) Maybe that's an anomaly but some of their lesser know tunes do deserve more of an airing at festivals. Only tonight James bashed out 30 Year War in a five song set. (Thanks to whoever filmed that by the way).

Other festival highlights for me were, among others, It's So Easy at Reading 2001, opening with Faster at Reading on the second stage (can't remember the year - 2008 ish?), Pennyroyal Tea on the same night and, of course, MOVE when they were promoting Lipstick Traces - Take The Skinheads Bowling was brilliant.

They are getting to the stage in their career where they are kind of becoming a legacy act, much like the Stones (again, imagine you went to see them and they didn't play Paint It Black) and there's nothing wrong with that so long as they keep writing the odd banger now and again. I, for one, hope International Blue stays in the set forever. Forever, forever, forever.....

Last edited by starfucker; 30-07-2019 at 22:46. Reason: A couple of wine-induced typos
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