What was your truth?

[Mr.Selfdestruct]

I got into the band during this period, but not because of this album. A good friend lent me THB and GT and that was that. Always liked Tolerate though.

I do have fond memories of the tour as it was my first time seeing them. I was lucky enough to be on holidays in California while the band were on their 99 US tour. So my first gig is still the smallest venue I've seen them in. Less than 400 people. A great gig it was too. I had to pretend to have come all the way over to see them, bring my sister and promise not to drink before they let me in. Got a scarf worn my Wire on stage at the end and gave it to a girl when I got home. Young love eh

[db26]

This is a great thread, have enjoyed reading other people's memories.

I truly love this record and i'm massively looking forward to the Edinburgh gig next year as it means a lot to me.

In '98 I had just turned 15 and only really starting to get into music. The Manics were my new big thing, having bought EMG the year before (I'd seen them on Buzzcocks and thought they looked cool). I listened to Truth religiously for the next 2-3 years and it helped me get through a few tough times at college.

This was the album that i fell in love with the band to, and it still sits in my top 3 albums, probably purely on this sentiment. After this, i struggled with KYE as i yearned for Truth part II (I eventually saw the error of my ways and now love KYE because it's NOT Truth part II) and went to my first gig on the greatest hits tour in '02.

Love this album. Love this band.

[mishima]

I remember it as a happy time (for a change!).

Genuinely loved the album, but best of all I met someone who was to become one of my closest friends at the Bridlington gig. It was a cracking gig, and have some great memories:

> Sitting on a wall by the beach, 15 yards away from JDB and his roadie eating ice creams. We were tow shy to say hello (nothing has changed!). While we were sitting there being shy, a local resident came up to us and asked us why there were 'so many young people' in town.

> There was a shop which in its window had an advertisement for 'knickers that tie at the knee'.

> Some of the pubs had signs up declaring 'Manics fans welcome'

>Opposite the venue was a retirement home (one of many in the town I think), and when we were all queueing up to get in, the residents were all on the balcony staring at the queue. Obviously not used to seeing 'so many young people' in town, particularly not boys in frocks and make-up (sigh).

> At the gig my then new friend received an accidental cigarette burn from a bloke in a one horned viking helmet. It has become known as the Bridlington Burn, and a bit like Harry Potter's scar in the presence of Voldermort, it throbs in the vicinity of the Manics

>When we came out of the gig, there were a group of mounted police. I think they expected all of the 'young people' to riot or something, but everyone just wanted to pat the horses Danni Minogue was playing the venue the following week, but I don't think she would have caused so much of a stir.

Those were the days when gig itself was just part of a wider fandom 'event'. It is something my friend and I (who have done gigs on every tour since) miss.

[someone, somewhere, soon]

ah, this gives me the chance to air a revelation i had about this album over the recent few years...

some background:

got into the band via ADFL at 15/16 years old, and very quickly fell into the whole 'mess of eyeliner and spray paint' side of the band working back from there. despite that, 16 year old me appreciated that EMG was a necessary shift from the events preceding it, but there was still enough there for me to get my angsty adolescent teeth into.

two years later - now 17, at college - Tolerate is announced. my little group of like-minded fans start to get very excited - "it's a full album written by Nicky, it's bound to be all glitter and feather boas, anger and glam rock!" "the lead single's called If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, for heaven's sake, it's gonna sound like Revol or something!"

then we actually hear Tolerate. it's not (obviously) angry. or glittery. or glam rock. it is, to this 17 year old's ears... a bit dull.

building up to the album release, we're still doing all the usual obsessed fan stuff around it... we got into the Radio 1 Cooper's Field thing, we were at the midnight launch in Cardiff that night, went to the Bridlington gig the week of my 18th birthday (my then girlfriend fought tooth and nail to secure JDB's setlist from the night - it's on my wall to this day).

but - my truth is - the album left us cold.

there were highlights that bubbled to the surface over the following weeks - Born A Girl, Tender & Tired, Nobody Loved You - but everything else was either too ploddy and pedestrian (I'm Not Working, My Little Empire, etc), or too overplayed and radio friendly (You Stole The Sun, Everlasting).

it was not an album for an 18 year old who was currently weighing up Idlewild's debut as their album of 1998. we very quickly (arrogantly) decreed it was an album for the 30-something, company car driving, 2.4 kid middle managers of the land - the Mondeo men, as was the common parlance at the time.

it became buried, disowned; we were apologetic for its very existence when the topic of music, bands and favourites came up, especially as we moved on up into Uni life.

for some, it was too much - the glitter, feather boas and glam faded to an embarrassment of their pre-Uni youth.

for me, personally, they were somewhat redeemed with Masses Against The Classes (cue me running from room to room in our student flat - "this! this is what they should sound like!"), then back on (some form of alternative) track when KYE spluttered along a year or so later.

the whole Truth period remained the dip in their catalogue for me. bar the few exceptions above, plus a handful of bsides / remixes / oddities from the era, every cd burnt and playlist made pretty much skipped straight from EMG into KYE. You Stole The Sun, Tolerate, Tsunami became the designated toilet breaks for gigs. Truth was resolutely at the bottom of my "rate the albums" lists, where it would stay forever.

but...

20 years later, guess who's now the 30-something, company car driving, 2.4 kid middle manager? and guess who now has a ticket to see Truth performed in its entirety - and is actually looking forward to it*?

while still not as excessive as other eras, the Truth playlist has been expanded to a solid 18 tracks; i've enjoyed the exposure and re-evaluation Tolerate's had of late... i now even get a little shiver if i hear it on the radio or out and about somewhere.

if there's a moral to this story, it'd be something about the arrogance of youth, the inevitability of aging and softening of tastes - all things that, on review, are actually covered throughout Truth.

bravo, Nicky, bravo.

*apart from You Stole The Sun. seriously, fuck that song.

[raven]

Originally Posted by someone, somewhere, soon

20 years later, guess who's now the 30-something, company car driving, 2.4 kid middle manager? and guess who now has a ticket to see Truth performed in its entirety - and is actually looking forward to it*?


if there's a moral to this story, it'd be something about the arrogance of youth, the inevitability of aging and softening of tastes - all things that, on review, are actually covered throughout Truth.

bravo, Nicky, bravo.

*apart from You Stole The Sun. seriously, fuck that song.

Company car driving, middle managing....sure the sun has been stolen from your heart no?....(I do mean it cheekily...but not rudely...)

[someone, somewhere, soon]

Originally Posted by raven

Company car driving, middle managing....sure the sun has been stolen from your heart no?....(I do mean it cheekily...but not rudely...)

typing all that out at work was more a case of I'm Not Working really!

[UEF]

I'd love a company Mondeo and I would challenge anyone here to say you wouldn't.

[blackflower]

Originally Posted by UEF

I'd love a company Mondeo and I would challenge anyone here to say you wouldn't.

I wouldn’t! But then, I can’t drive so it wouldn’t be of much use to me...

[rpmacmurphy]

Saw them multi times on this tour such as Wembley both nights with Catatonia supporting and Manic Millemium -the only new years i have really enjoyed ( despite
an incedent of bone crushing dissapoimtment ).
Best was V99 Staffs

Then there was the fan convention in Cardiff !!!

[starfucker]

Good thread. Really enjoyed reading everyone's posts in here so thought I would contribute my own memories from this period.

I personally got into the band in 1996, aged 15, when my father bought A Design For Life and rinsed it constantly. I subsequently bought Everything Must Go (album) for him for his birthday and ended up nicking it for myself and playing it to death in my bedroom.

Not long after this came the Nynex concert on Radio 1 which I taped and listened to relentlessly. This was my introduction to much of the earlier stuff ie Yes, Stay Beautiful, Motown Junk, Motorcycle Emptiness etc. After this I went out and bought the three previous albums and my obsession was complete.

When Truth came out I played Tolerate to death and bought the embossed cd the day it came out and bought tickets to see the band at Wembley Arena. My first Manics gig aged 18 in 1998 with Catatonia supporting. Absolute stormer of a gig which I still have fond memories of to this day even after seeing them thirty plus times now. This was pre-camera phone / internet everywhere era so it was an incredible surprise many years later when I was working in a second hand record shop someone brought in a hand held video recording of this gig. I had an enjoyable evening watching that gig again on grainy VHS.

Other than that night at Wembley, my main memories of the Truth era were of reading every single interview in every single music magazine, watching every tv performance and generally becoming completely obsessed with the band. Good times.

[Borderliner]

Truth was the very first MSP album that I listened to. Before Tolerate and Tsunami videos I had no idea about Manics.

Tolerate is one of my favourite songs/music videos. First impression effect, I guess.

And now Truth's 20th anniversary .. and they fascinate me just like they did in '98. Their talent and uniqueness simply shake the spacetime itself!

[raven]

I got into Generation Terrorists...then drifted...OK into a heavy metal phase, then grunge...then came The Holy Bible at just the right time...so Truth was along the road and I think for me I maybe had some expectation that it would be the album that might define them now Richey had left. Sure there was the brilliant Everything Must Go album but that was everything must go ... let's see The Truth (or something) and well I'd left university and felt a bit adrift ...I loved how successful it was, how If You Tolerate was so huge and Nicky so proud clearly and I really loved Tsunami about the 'silent twins' - a book I'd read not long before and had resonated so well with but for all the tracks I loved - Tsunami, You Stole the Sun...there were many that drifted...I was expecting it to be more political and provocative too I think with that title....
still unlike other bands they feel a bit like old friends, always there through good and the bad with no pretensions nor ego's (just lots of tongue in cheek) and I've realised you never really know what to expect from one album to the next except there's an honesty that runs through all they do and they're the only band I've clicked with that seem to have backgrounds not a million miles away from my own.....you don't need that to connect with a song of course not but they're always interesting in interviews and it's good to feel that connection....gave me the confidence to apply to university they did, to feel like it's actually OK to enjoy studying and to want to understand the world around you....to want to go to university

Never mastered punctuation however

[darkanddivine]

Yo folks, I expected about 3 responses to this, thanks for all your thoughts! So I suppose I should add my own…

I distinctly remember getting an electric shock down my spine when the “comet” noise came on the first time I heard Tolerate, probably unlike any other reaction I’ve had to a track. After that, to be honest the album could have been 14 hours of Sean Moore trumpet solos and I would still have loved it. I do remember waiting for Top of the Pops to (hopefully) see a plugged in live version, but it was one of those weird live vocals (but with a backing track) only performances.

When the album came out I was literally starting college the same day, so I had to fly into town to buy the one with the fancy silver letters, one that has just about survived until this day. I remember doing that very teenage thing of spending the first night with the thing on repeat poring over the lyrics. I’m pretty sure I thought I’d be able to impress my friends if I knew all the words by the following day. It turns out my level of obsession wasn’t matched by anyone else!

Not long after, I distinctly remember going to a college day out on the train. While my mates all sat around chatting, I went full on anti-social and had the album on. I love the power of particular pieces of music to transport you to a time and a place, and so whenever I hear Black Dog, I’m instantly back on that train with the autumn countryside rolling by.

Like many of you, this was also the moment I finally got to see the band live after a couple of failed efforts on the EMG tours. I didn’t even make the 98 arena tour, but I made it to V99 Staffordshire. I know the footage on Youtube is from the Chelmsford leg, but the feeling around those shows was very similar. Imagine a massive moshpit, even in the VERSES of You Stole The Sun. That’s how massive the guys were at that point. And, as they headed towards KYE it was nice to see that awkward clash between Truth, and them bringing Faster, Of Walking Abortion and Masses into the set. That was a hell of a show (and loud as fuck.) I remember getting back home, and waking up my mum at 2am to come and get me (BT phonecard anyone?) and was in a daydream for about a month.

I did try to get to Manic Millennium but then realised I had about 12p and a BT phonecard to my name, and the idea of sleeping in a train station didn’t sound that appealing. And I had V99 anyway, which was good enough to me.

And that was very much that. Probably more than anything, Truth just fit the mood of the moment at that point in my life. It was an album I could truly escape into. In a way it was almost like a drug I’d been given to help deal with the growing pains of my mid to late teenage years. I’ve probably always overrated it because of that emotional attachment. It clearly has its flaws, but because of the therapeutic qualities it has, and the way the band consumed my brain at that point, none of that seemed to matter. If you get drawn into it there’s no getting out. And I guess for those of us who like it, that might be its greatest strength.

[qster]

Originally Posted by kevoutus

I remember seeing them at Newcastle Arena in Dec ‘98 touring the album and it was the most static standing crowd I’ve ever seen. The performance equalled that. I thought they were on their way out ironically.

You should have been to Kettering Arena. Really didn’t enjoy that one. Acoustic faster was it for me. Always liked the first half of the album then I feel it tapers off. Luckily they have done some blinding gigs since then.

[Marconi Delorian]

I don't believe acoustic Faster happened until 2002-3, around the time of Forever Delayed?