“Apparently Ed O’Brien called me a wanker!” Nicky Wire explodes before the Manics’ glorious decade-spanning set draws to a close. “Fuck off back to boarding school you c***!” Almost twenty years into his career and he hasn’t lost his taste for an ill-advised fight, or an ill-advised amount of makeup. Less smokey-eyed and more deranged racoon, but still as full of anarchistic enthusiasm as he was at the beginning.

It feels like the beginning, in this venue that is the size of a glorified living room. It even starts at the beginning with the opening chords of rarely played Strip It Down from the band’s very first EP. One suspects that some of the venue mistook it for a new song. The next few were more recognisable though, Motorcycle Emptiness, Kevin Carter, Tsunami, From Despair To Where, interspersed with gems such as 2001’s gritty rock anthem Found That Soul, and lest we forget the first number one of this Millennium, Masses Against The Classes. James Dean Bradfield’s voice, that can fill 70,000 capacity stadiums, seems almost too big for the space. It’s a wonder there was any makeup left on the faces of the front row, so visceral was the attack of sound.

The only respite is provided by James’ brief acoustic interlude. A heart-rending rendition of another B-Side, Donkeys, and the familiar singalong that is The Everlasting gives just enough time for the front row to ease their bruised ribs, and for Nicky to change into something more comfortable. “Welsh tartan!” he exclaims on his return to the stage sporting a pink leopard-print mini skirt that an Essex hen night would be proud of. I jest. “You’ve still got the legs, Wire,” was James’ remark and I can only agree. 41 years old and he can still give female fans an inferiority complex. However as James begins to snarl into the mic again, You Love Us has never seemed more apt.   

The Manics, despite Nicky’s occasional pontificating about his politics degree (something that ironically can be attributed to absent member Richey Edwards, who Nicky has cited as being responsible for most of his essays…) and the band’s own fierce self-deprecation that has seen them throw commercial success back in the UK public’s face many times, have always been nothing if not 4real. While other bands merely hinted at, or sang about, revolution, the Manics endeavoured to create one. In a way, maybe they have. As well as an output of nine studio albums, one B-Sides collection, one Greatest Hits, and a scattering of EPs, the Manics can also count themselves responsible for the bookshelves and DVD collections of fans up and down the country and across the seas. JG Ballard, Sylvia Plath, Bret Easton Ellis, and Jack Lemmon sit alongside Public Enemy, Shirley Maclaine and the ever-present kohl-eyed spirit of Richey Edwards.

Never has a gig gone by without a tribute to their lost friend and tonight was no exception. No encore after A Design For Life, but of course they will be back. Back to the beginning and, hopefully, nowhere near the end.