Manic Street Preachers, DeadActors Club @ The Hi-Fi,Brisbane (13/11/2010)

Thu 18th Nov, 2010 in Gig Reviews

I wasn’t at The Charlatans on Wednesday, however I can conclude it’s pretty much the same crowd at The Hi-Fi tonight, with ‘90s Britpop veterans and UK expats as far as meets the eye. Judging by the vibrant atmosphere, everyone is well and truly ready to rock like it’s 1996, so I knock back a couple G&Ts and get amongst it.

International gigs pt. 1: incongruous support acts. Armed with the all the right accessories – skinny jeans, trendy hairstyles, Nord Stage keyboard – Melbourne indie-pop-rockers Dead Actors Club launch into an energetic, if somewhat personality-devoid set. The band are tight (the drummer being particularly impressive), but the hackneyed Killers-minus-the-hooks sonic milieu soon becomes pretty tiresome. Likewise, it’s hard not to point out that the five-piece’s most memorable track tonight is practically a carbon copy of The Bloodhound Gang’s 1999 hit Bad Touch – and I doubt my friend and I are the only ones mock-gleefully humming “you and me baby are nothing but mammals”.

Considering Manic Street Preachers haven’t played in Australia for ten years, their return is anything but triumphant. After a brief wait, the legendary Welsh mainstays emerge from backstage to ear-splitting cheers and immediately kick off the pogo-fest with the no-frills early single You Love Us. Ever the vocal powerhouse, frontman James Dean Bradfield tears one iconic lick after another from his signature white Les Paul Custom while lanky bassist Nicky Wire is resplendent in a white blazer (and later, matching nautical headgear) and drummer Sean Moore hammers his kit with remarkable precision and fury. 2007’s boppy Your Love Alone Is Not Enough is met with similarly exultant reception, yet it’s the immortal sublime strains of fan favourite Motorcycle Emptiness that send the shivers all around. From the new album Postcards From A Young Man, (This Is Not War) Just The End Of Love – and later, Some Kind Of Nothingness and Golden Platitudes – don’t fall flat compared to the mighty opening treble, and neither do 1993’s Roses In The Hospital, the highly-apt Australia or the gorgeous, understated This Is Yesterday. Doomed ex-member Richey Edwards’ lyrical shadow still seems to loom large above them, yet the Manics are quick to restore the celebratory vibe with the widescreen, Phil Spector-esque Everything Must Go and You Stole The Sun From My Heart.

I may have been nearly out of my teens when I discovered the trio’s music, but even ten years later, the blend of angsty poetry, glam (of which Wire’s feather boa-adorned mic stand is the most potent reminder), politically-charged punk rock, old-school riffage and lilting Welsh melancholy doesn’t cease to move. 2001’s Know Your Enemy highlight, the wistful Ocean Spray chills with its sombre trumpet solo, while the Manics’ first UK Top 10 hit – a stadium-rock cover of M.A.S.H. theme Suicide Is Painless – practically yells for arms-aloft action. Vicious first single Motown Junk is paired up with the band’s first #1 If You Tolerate This (Then Your Children Will Be Next), following which
Bradfield straps on the acoustic for a haunting solo rendition of The Everlasting as his cohorts temporarily desert the stage.

Brought back by deafening whoops, the Manics annihilate us some more with The Holy Bible’s snarling Faster and Everything Must Go’s rippling closer No Surface All Feeling and show their “human side” by heartily rib-poking their keyboard player for messing up Tsunami’s Oriental intro. By the time the set’s closing number – calling card A Design For Life – shakes The Hi-Fi, it feels like someone has packed the Wembley Arena into the venue’s walls, the crowd singing Wire’s egalitarian lyrics with anthemic force. Impossibly magnificent and as sonically and emotionally powerful as a wall of Marshalls.