Tribute Night: Manic Street Preachers

 

The Manics erupted like a putrid blister onto an unprepared music scene still limply suffocating in the lukewarm grip of Stock, Aitken & Waterman and Simply Red… OK, fair enough, I’m fooling nobody with my early 90s music press hyperbole – Know Your NME! But there was a palpable backlash brewing to the somewhat stagnant sounds of the late 80s pop charts. In the US, this was spearheaded by Pixies, Nirvana and the rise of grunge. In the UK, there was… what? Well, there were Britpop and Madchester perhaps… but also there were the Manics, splicing the provocatively political punk of The Clash and Public Enemy with the sleazy disposable glam metal of Guns’n’Roses, and fusing Richey Edwards’ uncompromising multi-channel stream of consciousness lyrics with James Dean Bradfield’s keen ear for a catchy melody and a delicious guitar riff. The disappearance of a very troubled Richey following the release of their bleak masterpiece of alienated disillusionment, The Holy Bible, in 1994, almost truncated their legacy abruptly, but they found a way to move forward and grow as a trio, and have gone on to build a formidable catalogue of music, with each of their last eight albums hitting the Top 4 in the UK albums chart, including their latest work, Critical Thinking, released in February this year.

 

At this event, expect to hear a variety of folks playing a variety of Manics songs in a variety of ways, some faithfully, some surprisingly, some ill-advisedly...

If you want to be involved and play a song or two, email Zac at tributenight@hotmail.co.uk back and let me know. You can bagsy a slot first if you haven’t decided on a song.

If you are a musician/singer and you want to be involved, but you don’t know other people to play or sing with, let me know and we’ll have a go at matching you up with others.

If you have an audio/video recording of yourself performing a Manics song, or indeed any song relevant to a previous Tribute Night, please send me a link to post on the Tribute Night Facebook page.

Thank you for your continued support of this frivolous thing we call Tribute Night. It’s a right lark.