Manic Street Preachers3Olympia Theatre, Dublin★★★★☆
Manic Street Preachers played the Olympia for the first time nearly 30 years ago, over Easter weekend in 1997, starting a long association with the former Victorian music hall.
The funny thing is that the band didn’t set out to be a going concern as a beloved heritage act a quarter of the way into the 21st century. In 1992 they made the grandiose claim that they would outsell Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction by flogging 16 million albums, then immediately split up.
The Welsh firebrands have now sold 10 million albums, so they’ll need to stick around for a while yet if they want to catch Axl Rose and company.
But it’s a testament to their back catalogue and confidence in their material that they can, audaciously, kick-start the first of two nights at 3Olympia with their 1992 song Motorcycle Emptiness, an anthemic, hands-in-the-air song about consumerism and late-stage capitalism partially inspired by Rumblefish, the 1975 novel by SE Hinton.
Every other bunch of seasoned old pros from the 1990s would reserve a song of this calibre for the encore, but the Manics never do things the easy or predictable way.
The irresistibly melodic Ocean Spray, from 2001, follows, its title lifted from the brand of cranberry juice the band’s singer, James Dean Bradfield, would bring to his mother when she was having cancer treatment.
In stark contrast, they then unleash the blistering fury of Faster, from their album The Holy Bible. It epitomises the Manics’ singular power, with Bradfield barking the refrain, “I am stronger than Mensa, Miller and Mailer, I spat out Plath and Pinter.”
The trio are flanked by their long-time producer Dave Eringa on keyboards (he played on their debut album, Generation Terrorists) and by an additional guitarist from Galway named Ray Murray.
For another song from The Holy Bible, Die in the Summertime, the Manics pare down to their nuclear formation as a three-piece. It’s poignant moment, as they leave empty the side of the stage formerly occupied by the song’s lyricist Richey Edwards, who disappeared in 1995 and was declared dead in 2008. It’s a touching tradition.
They dedicate a cover of Union City Blue, by Blondie, to Clem Burke, the US band’s drummer, who died in 2025. They also preface No Surface All Feeling with a snippet of Total Eclipse of the Heart and a shout-out to the late Bonnie Tyler.
If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next is the perfect parting glass, a stirring song about the Spanish Civil War and, some of us would say, one of the best number-one singles of all time. Confetti is pumped into the air at its rousing conclusion, bringing an emotionally charged 22-song set to a celebratory end.
The most thrilling thing about this remarkably resilient band is that they never sound mournful or despondent, regardless of the subject matter of any of their songs. The Manics’ brand of melancholy is euphoric, defiant, life-affirming and always uplifting.