Manic Street Preachers

Barrowland, Glasgow LISA-MARIE FERLA ****

BEFORE I saw it for myself, I admit to questioning just how the Manic Street Preachers intended to recreate the ferocity and intensity of their most celebrated album 20 years on.

The techno remix of Faster from guest DJ Robin Turner that welcomed the trio on to the stage could have been an attempt to silence the naysayers, but was instead greeted by a Barrowlands Roar to rival that of Hampden. With themes ranging from imperialism, consumerism and prostitution to anorexia and the Holocaust, The Holy Bible could never be reduced to a party album.

But it seems that there is a point when even the radical feminist idea that all men are walking abortions and the awkward teenage memory of treating 4st 7lb as a self-help text can become singalong anthems.

The Holy Bible was as much a manifesto as a collection of songs, so it was no surprise that the dialogue samples that punctuated the album and featured the trailer from GOP TV, with its nods to Thatcher and Reagan, got the reaction you’d expect.

In between, James Dean Bradfield’s guitar solos tore holes in the atmosphere on album opener Yes in particular, while Sean Moore’s staccato drumming on Archives of Pain certainly made our eardrums throb.

A shorter post-intermission set featuring songs from this year’s Futurology, as well as hits and curios, may have fallen a little flatter but bassist Nicky Wire sparkled in a jacket covered in tributes to fourth member Richey Edwards who went missing in 1995.

As my best friend from high school said of the riffs in This Is Yesterday, before she went back to stand with her husband: this was music that made us feel 16 again. And sometimes those are the best nights.