Manics Back to Blackwood

Taking a band like us back to the place we grew up in has a bit more resonance

because a lot of other bands are thrown together

or they've come from different towns or cities countries even.

Whereas, with us, we all grew up in and around Blackwood. The place,

in effect, shaped us.

In a career spanning three decades, ten hit albums and over six million record sales,

the Manic Street Preaches are Wales's most legendary rock'n'roll ambassadors.

Controversy, tragedy, politics

and pop fanaticism have all played a part in the Manics' phenomenal success.

The band haven't performed in their home town for nearly 25 years until now.

Invited by BBC Radio Two's In Concert to play the historic Miners' Institute,

the mighty Manics took us back to Blackwood.

January 2011 and the band arrive home in Blackwood

for a manic day packed with interviews and photo shoots

even finding time to give DJ Jo Whiley a whistle-stop tour of their old haunts.

Going back to Blackwood and playing the Institute seems like a challenge.

There is an element of seeing if you can reconnect to the past.

There's emotional resonance there. There's definitely lots of nostalgia.

The thing you feel most is a bit of fear, I think.

There's bound to be someone there

who I played football with who's going to shout

"Shirley" my nickname, straight away.

JAMES: And someone's going to shout out at least one of my 15 nicknames.

-Radar!

-Radar.

-Crossfire!

Crossfire, Joe 90.

Terence McCann.

Tonight, they return to the place that earlier on today,

Nicky Wire described as his inspirational home.

Here, in Blackwood, it is the Manic Street Preachers!

CHEERING

-NICKY:

-For me, the small gigs are the really scary ones.

It's much easier to play the bliss

of euphoria of mass communication at something like the Millennium

when we've done that. That's much less nerve-racking

than seeing 200 extremely hardcore fans in front of you.

Motorcycle Emptiness.

# Culture sucks down words

# Itemise loathing and feed yourself smiles

# Organise your safe tribal war

# Hurt, maim, kill and enslave the ghetto

# Each day living out a lie

# Life sold cheaply forever

# Under neon loneliness

# Motorcycle emptiness

# Under neon loneliness

# Motorcycle emptiness

# Life lies a slow suicide

# Orthodox dreams and symbolic myths

# From feudal serf to spender

# This wonderful world of purchase power

# Just like lungs sucking on air

# Survival's natural as sorrow

# Under neon loneliness

# Motorcycle emptiness

# Under neon loneliness

# Motorcycle

# All we want from you are the kicks you've

# All we want from you are the kicks you've

# All we want from you are the kicks you've given us

# All we want from you are the kicks you've given us

# You gi-i-i-ive

# Under neon loneliness

# Motorcycle emptiness

# Under neon loneliness

# Motorcycle

# Drive away and it's the same

# Everywhere death row

# Everyone's a victim

# Your joys are counterfeit

# This happiness corrupt political shit

# Living life like a comatose

# Ego loaded and swallow

# We swallow

# Under neon loneliness

# Motorcycle emptiness

# Under neon loneliness

# Motorcycle

# Under neon loneliness

# Motorcycle

# Under neon loneliness

# Everlasting nothingness. #

CHEERING

Hello, Blackwood.

The Manic Street Preachers last gig in Blackwood, some 25 years ago,

wasn't quite such an auspicious occasion.

Last time we played there was in a little theatre supporting Funeral In Berlin.

They were a top Blackwood goth band at the time.

It turned into a stage invasion and riot.

Some of the footage has appeared on YouTube over the last couple of weeks.

You can see us dodging cans and people just wandering on stage

and trying to deck us.

We were scared witless and Shaun was on two drums like Bobby Gillespie

and we did a brilliant version of Just Like Honey,

God Save The Queen by the Pistols.

I think we did Teenage Kicks.

I had "I am sex" written on my chest.

The nipples cut out of my jumper. Complete misplaced confidence.

You can see our manager sitting behind the amps and people were chucking cans at the stage.

He shakes them...

To see if there's anything left.

..to see if there's anything in there and he goes...

Huh!

Come on.

# To feel forgiveness You gotta forgive

# Do you see the stars or the darkness begin?

# You fight your war I fought for my life

# You pay your dues and I'll pay mine

# It's not war

# Just the end of love

# Just like before

# But it's never enough

# Oh, it's never enough, oh

# You fight your war I fight for my life

# You pay your dues and I won't pay mine

# To feel forgiveness you gotta forgive

# It's lost on me I believe in revenge

# It's not war

# Just the end of love

# You've got the looks

# But I've got the stars

# It's not war

# Just the end of love

# To feel some tenderness

# Do you have to give up?

# Why do you have to give up?

# Do you have to give up?

# It's not war

# Just the end of love

# Just like before

# But it's never enough

# It's not war

# Just the end of love

# You weathered the storm

# But sheltered the loss

# But sheltered the loss

# But sheltered the loss. #

CHEERING

Thank you very much.

As soon as I think about Blackwood when we were 16 or 17,

I think about the places that we used to go and meet up.

There was Louie's Cafe. There was the Square Cafe.

That was our stamping ground.

We used to roll round the place

and perhaps sometimes challenge people to beat us up

just by the way we were looking.

If there's one song that epitomises our time walking round Blackwood

in our tight white jeans and our leather jackets, it was Suicide Alley,

which is our first ever single, which we printed ourselves,

the photograph of which is quite close to the studio, in an alley

on the opposite side,

and we literally haven't played that song for 22, 24 years now.

CHEERING

# I'm going down to suicide alley

# Cos the air I breathe

# Tastes better down there Hey hey hey, yeah

# I'm going down to suicide alley

# Cos it seems as if As if it's the only place for me

Come on!

# And I'm going down to suicide alley

# Where you can't get at me

# And I'm going down to suicide alley

# Where I can be what I want to be

# I'm going down to suicide alley

# Cos the air I breathe

# Tastes better down there Yeah, hey, hey, hey

# I'm going down to suicide alley

# Cos it seems as if

# As if it's the only place for me Wey hey

# I'm going down to suicide alley

# Where you can't get at me

# And I'm going down to suicide alley

# Where I can be what I want to be

# You won't eat away at my mind

# With your ideas of decency

# I'll be in suicide alley

# Being who and what I want to be

# You won't eat away at my mind

# With your ideas of decency

# I'll be in suicide alley

# Being who and what I want to be. #

Two, three, four!

CHEERING AND WHISTLING

The band's Blackwood background has played a massive role

in their music and identity,

but in the early days the constraints of a small community

left the young Manics with a love-hate attitude towards their hometown.

Most bands start out trying to escape where they've come from.

We were no different.

At the start we were desperate to escape what we thought...

was a cultural/industrial vacuum.

But the obvious thing happened.

As soon as you started touring,

I was going back home all the time.

I wanted to get back all the time.

-Up until The Holy Bible, anyway.

-I never left anyway.

In typically Welsh fashion, all I did was move to Wattsville five miles down the road.

I finally made it to Newport when I hit the peak time.

Again, in a typical Welsh way,

-James and Sean would always say they were from Pontllanfraith anyway!

-THEY LAUGH

A mile's a long way in the valley.

Growing up in the '80s,

the Manics had a long way to go to get hold of the music they were after.

Now, when an instant music fix is just a click of a mouse away,

they feel nostalgia for the way they consumed music.

Coming to Cardiff on the train,

busking, literally to buy a Wimpy hamburger

and then buy a 7" from Spillers,

was just totally magical.

The excitement of getting the NME every week

and Melody Maker and Sounds.

It's also a simple explanation as to why a lot of music we got so excited about,

and why we coveted it so much when we finally got it.

You'd gone through a mini battle to get it.

You'd sent off a postal order, or you'd taken a bus journey,

and you'd saved up.

And by the time you got it, it just seemed so important.

It seemed as if there was some kind of sacrifice involved in getting this music.

By the time you put it on the turntable, the build-up was so gigantic

that it meant something more.

One, two, three, four...

# Drinking

# Water to stay thin

# Or is it to purify

# I love you all the same

# But there's no

# No real truce with my fury

# You don't have to believe me

# I love you all the same

One, two, three, four

# But you

# Stole the sun from my heart

# You stole the sun from my heart

One two three four one two three four

# You

# Stole the sun from my heart

# You stole the sun from

# You stole the sun from

# You have

# Broken through my armour

# And I don't have an answer I

# I love you all the same

# I paint

# The things I want to see

# But it don't come easy I

# I love you all the same

# But you stole the sun from my heart

# You stole the sun from my heart

# Whoa-oh-oh, you

# Stole the sun from my heart

# You stole the sun from

# You stole the sun from

# Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

# I think I'm

# I'm lost amongst the undergrowth

# So much so I woke up I

# I love you all the same. #

One more time!

# But you

# Stole the sun from my heart

# You stole the sun from my

# Whoa-oh-oh, you

# Stole the sun from my heart

# You stole the sun from

# You stole the sun from

# I have

# I've got to stop smiling

# It gives the wrong impression I

# I love you all the

# Same. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The Manics have always been masters of imagery

and the art of controversial TV performances.

But at times, this has led some to question their genuineness.

We weren't what you'd call a classically authentic band

because it's all about ideas, you know.

The fact that me and Richey didn't really care about the music,

but we were obsessed with words and image

and just the way we looked as a band.

We were a very kind of odd marriage, the four of us.

# I am an architect

# They call me a butcher... #

Intentionally or not, the bands ideas have frequently caused a stir

often as a result of their blistering Top Of The Pops appearances.

I remember when you first Tipp-Exed James across the front of it in the dressing room.

There was some kind of notion of subversive power

looking like a cross between a terrorist and a rapist, but subversive.

Or, kind of like, special forces.

I didn't think about how it might really, really offend some people.

I think it was one of the record amount of calls Top Of The Pops ever got.

-It seems completely tame now.

-It does.

-Post Christina Aguilera.

-It's not that horrendous.

-Imagine what Lady Gaga could do with a balaclava.

She could really rock it.

Yeah!

# Never ever wanted to be with you

# The only thing you gave me was the boredom, I suffocated in you

# Ooh-ooh-ooh

# Adrift in cheap dreams don't stop this rain

# Numbed out in piss towns just wanna dig their graves

# Ooh-ooh-ooh

# Motown, Motown junk

# I laughed

# 21 years of living and nothing means anything to me

# Motown junk a lifetime of slavery

# Songs of love echo underclass betrayal

# Stops your heart beating for 168 seconds

# Stops your brain thinking

-# Motown junk

-Junka, junka, junka

-# Motown junk

-Junka, junka, junka

# Motown junk

# I don't want cos I just get

# All your slut heroes offer is a fear of the

# Ooh-ooh

# Past made useless cos I'm dying now

# Communal tyranny a jail that bleeds our wrists

# Ooh-ooh

# Motown, Motown junk

# I laughed

# 21 years of living and nothing means anything to me

# Motown junk a lifetime of slavery

# Songs of love echo underclass betrayal

# Stops your heart beating for 168 seconds

# Motown junk

# Motown junk

# Motown junk

# Motown, come on

# Motown junk

# Motown junk

# Motown junk

# Motown junk. #

We come from Blackwood, South Wales.

We're here to rock and roll!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

This is off Everything Must Go, this is called Enola/Alone.

# The Statue of Liberty looks so solemn on the TV

# 100% risk of stepping outside

# Every second too precious to try

# My heart aches for Enola

# From my birth a relic a killer

# But all I want to do is live

# No matter how miserable it is

# Please sing to me a song

# Enola alone

# Please take me on home

# Enola alone

# Whoa-oh-oh-oh

# I walk in the grass and I feel some peace at last

# I walk on the beach and for once I feel some ease

# I'll take a picture of you to remember how good you looked

# Like a memory it has disappeared Naked and lonely

# Please sing to me a song

# Enola alone

# Please take me on home

# Enola alone

# Whoa-oh-oh-oh

# Please sing to me a song

# Enola alone

# Please take me on home

# Enola alone

# Whoa-oh-oh-oh oh oh whoa

# Whoa-oh whoa

# Oh-oh

# Safe European home. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

In 1995, the band suffered a devastating personal and professional blow

caused by the tragic disappearance of their friend and fellow band member Richey Edwards.

Some 16 years later, it's clear that his presence is still very much missed.

As you know, anyone who's seen us over the last 10-15 years, there's always a gap

to our right side, which will never ever be replaced.

-This song...

-CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Em, this song is dedicated

to the boy and the man who filled that space so exquisitely,

so intelligently

and so damn full of rock and roll.

It is for the genius of Mr Richard Edwards.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Faster!

# I am an architect

# They call me a butcher

# I am a pioneer

# They call me primitive

# I am purity

# They call me perverted

# Holding you but I only miss these things when they leave

# I am idiot drug hive, the virgin The tattered and the torn

# Life is for the cold made warm and they are just lizards

# Self-disgust is self-obsession Honey

# And I do as I please

# A morality obedient

# Only to the cleansed repented

# I am stronger than Mensa

# Miller and Mailer I spat out Plath and Pinter

# I am all the things that you regret

# A truth that washes That learned how to spell

# The first time you see yourself

# Naked you cry

# Soft skin now acne

# Foul breath, so broken

# He loves me truly

# This mute solitude I'm draining

# I know I believe in nothing

# But this is my nothing

# Sleep can't hide the thoughts spinning through my mind

# False mirrors are too clean Too many people awake

# If you stand up like a nail then you will be knocked down

# I've been too honest with myself I should have

# Lied like everybody else

# I am stronger than Mensa

# Miller and Mailer I spat out Plath and Pinter

# I am all the things that you regret

# A truth that washes That learned how to spell

# So damn easy to cave in

# Man kills everything

# So damn easy to cave in

# Man kills everything

# So damn easy to cave in

# Man kills everything

# So damn easy to cave in

# Man kills everything. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Without Richey, it was unclear whether Manic Street Preachers would even carry on,

but with the release of Everything Must Go in 1996

came their greatest success.

We had quite low expectations, obviously,

after Richey's disappearance.

The way we talked to each other was...

you know, if we could do 100,000 albums on this and just kind of keep together

and we made a great record, that'd be brilliant. We were...

You know, but the fact then it went on to sell way over a million

in the UK alone...

The thing we were doing post Design For Life

was the stages that we were supposed to be on et cetera, et cetera.

Obviously that was post Richey going missing, so everything was a tiny bit bittersweet as well.

# The future teaches you to be alone

# The present to be afraid and cold

# So if I can shoot rabbits

# Then I can shoot fascists

# Bullets for your brain today

# But we'll forget it all again

# Monuments put from pen to paper

# Turns me into a gutless wonder

# If you tolerate this

# Then your children will be next

# If you tolerate this

# Then your children will be next

# Will be next, will be next

# Will be next

# Gravity keeps my head down

# Or is it maybe shame

# At being so young and being so vain

# Holes in your head today

# But I'm a pacifist

# I've walked Las Ramblas

# But not with real intent

# If you tolerate this

# Then your children will be next

# If you tolerate this

# Then your children will be next

# Will be next, will be next

# Will be next

# And on the street tonight an old man plays

# With newspaper cuttings of his glory days

# If you tolerate this

# Then your children will be next

# If you tolerate this

# Then your children will be next

# Will be next, will be next

# Will be next

# Ahhh, ahhh

# Whoa... #

Come on!

# Whoa-oh, whoa-oh

# Whoa-oh, whoa-oh

# Whoa-oh, whoa-oh

# Whoa. #

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

I don't think I ever have a sense of, you know,

where we sit in the landscape of pop or rock history and all that malarkey,

because a band only ever truly understands itself if you can say you've influenced another band.

If you've influenced another band that's had lots of success.

I don't think we've ever influenced anybody.

I think we're thee second best band ever, from Wales.

# If you want it Here it is

# Come and get it...#

I think Badfinger are the greatest ever Welsh band.

I'm pretty sure we're the second best.

I'm not getting into that one.

# We are not your sinners Our voices are for real

# We realised and won't be mourned We gonna burn your deathmask uniforms

# We won't die of devotion Understand we can never belong

# Throw some acid into your face

# You love us

# You love us

# You love us You love

# You love us Oh, you love us

# You love You love us

# You love us You love

# Till I see love in statues Your lessons drill inherited sin

# Parliaments a fake life saver

# You better wake up And smell the real flavour

# You love us like a holocaust Same PR problem as EST

# You love us like a holocaust

# You love us

# You love us

# You love us You love

# You love us Oh, you love us

# You love You love us

-# You love us

-You're my guitar hero

# You love us

# You love us

# You love us You love

# You love us Oh, you love us

# You love You love us

# You love us You love

# Fall into love! #

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Eh, today we've been going to all our old haunts,

and some got knocked down, like Pizza House, which isn't there anymore.

Dorothy's Caff, not there no more.

Martin Luther Records, not there no more.

So it feels a bit daft to say that the title of this next song is Postcards from a Young Man.

# I don't believe in absolutes anymore

# I'm quite prepared To admit I was wrong

# This life It sucks your principles away

# You have to fight against it Every single day

# These are the postcards from a young man

# They may never be written Or posted again

# These are the postcards from a young man

# They may never be written Or posted again

# It is like so many other things

# As distant as your former sins

# So sad and lonely and so derelict

# As the optimism that we once shared

# These are the postcards from a young man

# They may never be written Or posted again

# These are the postcards from a young man

# They may never be written Or posted again

# I'll send you postcards Every single day

# Just to prove I still exist

# This world will not impose its will

# I will not give up And I will not give in

# And I will not give up!

# These are the postcards from a young man

# They may never bee written Or posted again

# These are the postcards from a young man

# They may never be written

# I won't betray your confidence I won't pretend my way was lost

# This world will not impose its will

# I will not give up And I will not give in

# This world will not impose its will

# I will not give up And I will not give in. #

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Admitting that their music tends to alternate between the dark and more difficult sounds

of albums such as The Holy Bible

and the kind of anthemic songs that filled Postcards From A Young Man,

what direction do Manic Street Preachers see themselves taking next?

We know that the next record won't be anything like Postcards From A Young Man,

and perhaps, deep down, we know that we'll never really, truly attempt to do a record like that again.

Postcards From A Young Man.

And we got to decide what we want to do or what direction falls upon us.

I mean, yes, we've set ourselves our rules. You've got to get young fans,

you've got to have mass communication.

But we might have to make a record that doesn't...

doesn't fulfil any of those rules, we might have to break our rules.

Bit of a scary time to think about what the next record might be.

It seems like we have to be more indulgent with ourselves.

Whatever happens next will be different in many ways.

Thinking about getting a new singer.

LAUGHTER

-You never know.

-Never know.

# The sky is falling in on you

# Crushed any happiness you knew

# The tree gave more to you than love

# It's still there But, baby, you're gone

# Remember you

# Stretched out in the sun

# All alone forever

# Conclusions foregone

# Will you find

# Some kind of nothingness?

# Some kind of nothingness

# Still and lonely

# Like an old school photograph

# Laid yourself out under the stars

# Some peace at last so don't be sad

# A fitting end to your end

# But, baby, death's our only friend

# Remember you

# Stretched out in the sun

# All alone forever

# Conclusions foregone

# Will you find

# Some kind of nothingness?

# Still and lonely

# Like an old school photograph

# Your future glories, all empty of thoughts

# There's beauty doing nothing at all

# It's what you wanted It's what you got

# Your final search for truth has stopped

# Ah, ah, ah

# Ah, ah, ah

-# Ah, ah, ah

-There's beauty doing nothing at all

# Ah, ah, ah

# Na-na, na-na-na, never stop

# Na-na, na-na-na, never stop

# Never stop

# Never stop, never stop

# Never!

# Remember you

# Stretched out in the sun

# All alone forever

# Conclusions foregone

# Will you find

# Some kind of nothingness?

# Still and lonely

-# Like an old...school photograph

-Old school photograph. #

CHEERING

With this landmark gig set to go down in Manics folklore,

James and Nicky shared some final reflections on their Blackwood roots.

There are so many subliminal things that form you.

The more and more you look back, whether it be the landscape whether it be a teacher, you know,

whether it just be the place where you used to go and walk your dog all the time, or a shop,

you know, we would just never have been the band

we were without growing up there. It's as simple as that.

I think if there is a South Wales definition of music,

then it is A Design For Life.

That song and that sound could only come from where we come from.

# Libraries gave us power

# Then work came and made us free

# What price now

# For a shallow piece of dignity?

# I wish I had a bottle

# Right here in my dirty face

# To wear the scars

# To show from where we all came

# We don't talk about love

# We only want to get drunk

# And we are not allowed to spend

# As we are told that this is the end

# A design...for life

# A design...for life

# A design...for life

-AUDIENCE:

-# A design for life... #

OK, this verse is yours. One, two, three, four...

# ..I wish I had a bottle

# Right here in my pretty face

# To wear the scars

# To show from where I came... #

Yeah!

# ..We don't talk about love

# We only want to get drunk

# And we are not allowed to spend

# As we are told that this is the end

# A design...for life

# A design...for life

# A design

# For life

# A design for life

# The summer wind

# Oh, it came blowin' in

# From across the Severn Estuary

# It lingered there

# It gave hope to you and me, yeah

# Yeah

# We don't talk about love

# We only want to get drunk

# And we are not allowed to spend

# As we are told that this is the end

# A design...for life

# A design...

# A design...for life

# A design for life

CHEERING, APPLAUSE

Good night from Mr Nicholas Allen Wire, good night from Sean Anthony Moore,

good night from me,

and most importantly, good night from Mr Richard James Edwards.

-We are the Manic Street Preachers. May your gods be with you. Good night.

-Be poor, be vigilant, behave.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media

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