05/06/15 Cardiff Castle

[Takk]

Also - the crowd was obviously gonna be less wild for thb than the hits - they don't have 9000 hard core fans. The crowd went absolutely crazy for motorcycle, you stole the sun, design etc....

and to the wankers throwing bottles really hard at the crowd. GAH.

[Aestivate]

Nice surprise to see Manics Live on the BBC Red Button last night. And they kept Condemned To Rock N Roll in, so I'm a happy person. Sean's drumming is thes best it's evet been. Massively diverse range of people in audience in age, height, weight, gender and dress sense. Why should a band this good quit? I haven't felt such pride in the band's achievements in a long time. Really enjoyed this.

[The Crow]

From the minimal interest I have now for the Manics as I was displeased with the gig at the Roundhouse because of James can barely do a tour without something going wrong with his throat & people thinking that yesterday was going to be epic well I knew last year it would not be & I was right the gig would be nothing to really remember. Wrong venue personally.

Seems whoever was at Edinburgh, or on the last night at the Roundhouse got their moneys worth along with a top audience, just looking at the crowd at CC it looked more like a Free Gig, its true what Tak said, you aint' got 9,000 hardcore fans anymore. In that crowd probably less than 200 if that.

Nicky looks like Michael Myers!!! MSP are so unimaginative, a gig in their home town etc & they put out the generic set list of hits, nothing special...............they should have done it very differently had they been more intrigued. Oh lets bust up the instruments, like that hasn't been done before......boring.

They make a very good LP & don't even tour it, then I get an email about limited signed bollocks???? WTF?!!!!

[mrdavidj]

Well, now that I've slept on it, my general consensus is this...

That will probably be the second best thing I do all year, after getting married.

I was near the front for The Holy Bible set, yet managed to get stuck behind the one person at a gig that doesn't move. At all. This didn't stop me enjoying myself though, even if I was starting to feel anxious about being in people's way, with nowhere to move to.

In the interval I decided to head to the bar, partly because I wanted some Fubar (they had sold out), but more because I was getting increasingly agitated with having to move for people so they could move themselves into a space that quite clearly wasn't there. Physics? Pah! Certain people at gigs laugh at it's rules.

For the second half I was not amongst or near the hardcore fans, but moving around between the drunks and those who knew SPLAM. I feel like I probably would have enjoyed the second half more if I remained where I was. That being said, I would have also got increasingly pissed off if standing man remained in front of me.

All being said, I didn't really come to this gig for the music. It was always about the venue, and the occasion, and being there. The castle looked beautiful as the sun was setting beside it. Also, as mentioned before, the Welsh National Anthem sung by the majority of a 10,000 strong crowd, was also beautiful. I feel like I will remember these, and the people, much more than I will do any of the actual set.

If this turns out to be the last Manics gig I ever see, I'll be perfectly happy with that.

[Porco]

Originally Posted by tiger

You're the BBC. You're funded by the masses. You've 90 minutes to fill, and a live show to edit for broadcast within 45mins of it starting. You've potentially millions of people to please. Do you cut Removeables or top-3 chart smash Your Love Alone..?

I feel they struck a good balance. We were never going to get the full show. The vast majority of live shows broadcast on any TV channel have a few songs cut. I was more than happy with what I got to see. It's a shitload more Manics than has been on TV in the last decade. It was great for me to see the intense/nervousness of Glasgow compared to the set-piece show that was Edinburgh to the triumphant homecoming of Cardiff. If you really were that bothered about seeing everything, then go to a gig. The BBC gave the many who couldn't make it to any show for a whole myriad of reasons the chance to sample a taste.
You all should be grateful.
It wasn't even going to be broadcast as far as anyone knew until a month ago!

Thank you BBC, well done on being brave enough to not censor the lyrics (that must've been a tough decision), and thank you Manics for allowing the broadcast, even if there are a minority of ungrateful, selfish "fans" out there!

I would agree any manics on TV is better than no manics on TV, but it was on the red button channel so they could have had as much time as they wanted, and it'd be far easier to broadcast the whole thing than edit it.

I wonder if it was even up to the BBC? It makes no sense to me if it was.

[hummingbird]

James's guitar or pedal or something died just before the big solo at the end of one of the thb songs so complete live DVD will never happen.. they don't tend to release cock ups

[Dancing Kirby]

I just like to moan.

[astrogirl]

It was always going to be a bit of a strange one... playing THB to the masses, in a castle in Cardiff, in daylight... And it did prove to be a bit hit and miss. But definitely glad I went. This is Yesterday at dusk was lovely. Much of the rest of that set fell quite a bit short of the atmosphere that was generated in Manchester Albert Hall, for example. Partly the lightness and partly the crowd.

Second set was much more successful, although by then you have the drunk idiots to contend with. Good to have the big screens and that they kept in all the rare gems. The fireworks and guitar smashing was an entertaining, if slightly bizarre, nod to past and also a full stop to this phase I guess. And the skirt was great, of course

Oh and a little bit of me agrees that swapping the sets would have worked better. Then you'd have had a dark THB, followed by guitar smashing. Also maybe some of the casuals might have just left...

EDIT: Am conscious though that it was deliberate and pretty cool to play this album to a massive crowd, most of which wouldn't know it.

[Blue]

The setlist quote says it all.

[UEF]

Originally Posted by hummingbird

James's guitar or pedal or something died just before the big solo at the end of one of the thb songs so complete live DVD will never happen.. they don't tend to release cock ups

B string snapped during Archives of Pain. There's no spare for that guitar either!

Surprised James didn't redo the solo which could then be cut in the edit. Instead he counted the bars and came back in after the changeover. Doh!

[RichieM]

So, reading through this thread, there are a lot of people complaining massively about the BBC coverage last night. Seriously now, this complaining really does sound petty, and ridiculous.

Just take a step back for a moment. For anyone who genuinely thought they were getting that gig live and in full, the start time could have been a give away, together with the fact that they did say they'd include interviews etc, so it was obvious some songs would be cut.

Lets look at the first half of the gig - they played 8 songs from THB on the coverage. I'll say that again, 8 songs. When was the last time you saw that on the BBC? That's amazing. I'm sure all us cult manics fans wanted to see archives, 4st7lb, mausoleum, die in the summertime and intense humming of evil, I know I did, but come on now!!! If you're the BBC, putting out a programme for people in general (most of whom are casual manics fans at best, if not people with next to zero knowledge of the band), what THB songs would you decide to cut? Album tracks probably? Of course you would.

And look at the second half of the gig. The manics played 12 songs. The BBC showed 10 of them. THAT'S BLOODY BRILLIANT!!! Again, if you had to make a cutting decision, on a show to be broadcast to people who 99.99% of which are not cult manics fans like those replying to this thread, you'd probably be cutting removables and SPLAM from that set too, surely?

Just to reiterate, the BBC showed 18 manics songs live or semi live last night. When was the last time they did that?

For anyone still moaning, please just remember that cult manics fans represent a very very low proportion of the population indeed. If you wanted to see the rest of the stuff payed, you should have gone to the gig (or any of the others around the UK).

[hummingbird]

Originally Posted by UEF

B string snapped during Archives of Pain. There's no spare for that guitar either!

Surprised James didn't redo the solo which could then be cut in the edit. Instead he counted the bars and came back in after the changeover. Doh!

He didn't have long to think about it I guess ... At least he didn't panic and stop the songI loved what nicky said after tho... Poor James couldn't show off

[Anaconda Vice]

Originally Posted by Son of Stopped

But then again, what did we really expect the BBC to do but edit THB into a "Now That's What I Call Trigger Warnings" cosmetic edit.

That should totally be an album title. Maybe if Richey was still around it might have been...

Good gig, but for me, THB was done better last year. It just suited those smaller venues (Manchester Albert Hall was a perfect environment for it), and the band played better, I feel. The second half was the draw for me at this point. On that subject, "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough" needs to disappear completely from the band's sets. It was remarked upon last year and it still holds true, but it's falling flat now, in a way an alleged "hit" shouldn't, and they have bigger hits that always work. Or even thrown in another lesser-spotted gem. "Condemned to Rock & Roll" has been a treat, and SPLAM was fun as well (Still waiting for a proper Futurology tour...). They should have totally brought that sting quartet back on for A Design For Life...

Oh, and you don't know what loneliness is, or an intense urge to kill, until you're stuck on a train after midnight on a train carriage as the only Manics fan amongst a bunch of One Direction fans, singing their songs (and Blondie's, although I wonder if they even know the original), worse than the actual band. I was sat next to one guy who was a father having to take his kids to BOTH of One Direction's nights at the stadium. That man has my sympathy having to do that journey twice.

Like I said, it wasn't bad, but maybe a THB outdoors doesn'twork quite as well. Had they saved doing the Castle for a theoretical EMG20, I could see that working. Then again I'd probably have to deal with even more douchebags than I already did. Seriously, if I wanted that shit, I'd have gone to a Stereophonics concert.

By the way, I don't know of this was just because of where I ended up by that point, but it's staggering how many welsh people claim to be proud of being welsh, but don't know their own national anthem...

Can't speak for the BBC coverage as obviously I was too busy being there to see it.

Originally Posted by Carson

SPLAM. Not sure what this is. She Pisses Like A Man? I'll have a think about it.

Now I'm singing that to the actual song. It fits!

[lloyddhr]

Originally Posted by RichieM

they played 8 songs from THB on the coverage. I'll say that again, 8 songs. When was the last time you saw that on the BBC? That's amazing. I'm sure all us cult manics fans wanted to see archives, 4st7lb, mausoleum, die in the summertime and intense humming of evil, I know I did, but come on now!!

And look at the second half of the gig. The manics played 12 songs. The BBC showed 10 of them. THAT'S BLOODY BRILLIANT!!! Again, if you had to make a cutting decision, on a show to be broadcast to people who 99.99% of which are not cult manics fans like those replying to this thread, you'd probably be cutting removables and SPLAM from that set too, surely?

.

I was moanin' away last night about it. But these points are pretty solid actually

[gracie]

Originally Posted by acquiescefc

Opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one.

Stop trying to do the ' I'm an ickle girlie and you're picking on me'.
I took offence with your comments, now you regret them. It's part of growing up. Come back when you have.

I don't regret them at all, you're a twat.

Sounds like you need to grow up to be quite honest...you're the one arguing back and forth with a CHILD.