02/07/2025 Manics Summer Show feat Charlatans & Ash - Saffron Walton, Essex
 

https://i.imgur.com/ocPAHnb.jpeg

Presale 26 Feb register here https://arep.co/p/manicstreetpreachers

Sorry mods, can you change the title to 02/08/2025 please

Tempting... but I've already got a one day festival with the Charlatans and Ash booked up. I might have a wait and see if something slightly more convenient pops up.

Audley End, eh? I used to work for a ticket agency and this was one of the venues that would often attract complaining middle-class boomers, outraged by car park queues or the bar running out of Sauvignon. I wonder if this kind of territory is where the Manics are headed!

Would it be wrong of me to interpret this as a large scale show for fans? Or is it more of a festival set for the casual?

It looks like a bit of both really... it seems to be part of a series of concerts there over the summer (https://www.heritagelive.net/), but each of them seem to have a fairly strong set of established support acts. According to the page doors open at two and it goes on till half ten so I guess there may be a few smaller acts still to be added.

Whether they don't feel that the Manics have enough pulling power by themselves so they're banking on Charlatans/Ash fans who kind of like the other two acts to boost the sales. And it's not clear at all how long each act will be performing for.

Not sure if that helps!

been to a couple of these, as the place is only a 45 min drive from here.

very much a one stage festival thing - as well as the stage you've got the usual ring of food vendors round the outside, few fairground rides in the corner, deckchairs and picnic blankets up at the back for families and such.

stage is at the bottom of a hill, so good views all the way to the back. the field is wide, and yes, there are a good number of families and casual music fans there just looking for an afternoon / evening of music - which means there's not too a heavy rush to the front of the stage, you can casually walk down the side and ease yourself in along the length of the barrier. even with the headliner on we've never had a problem just strolling in and out of the front of the crowd. sound's always been decent too.

probably the biggest problem is as mentioned above - queue for the car park, especially exiting at the end of the night. it's a one track path that winds through the neighbour's farm, so not only do you get maybe an hour's wait until you can actually move your car, you've also got maybe another half hour filtering down the farm track to join the main road.

I wonder if this was inspired by Alexandra Palace last year. Afternoon show in the sun, on a hill so they could see everyone and watchers could have a nice picnic. Lovely.

Cool to see them playing with Ash.