Manic Street Preachers - Leaving The 20th Century - Cardiff Millennium Stadium 1999/2000 (DVD)

...I was a huge, huge Manic Street Preachers fan with all the "I was a teenage Manics' fan" connotations with it, and I couldn't think of anywhere better to be for my Millenium Eve.

Being a Londoner myself, all my mates were down Trafalgar Square getting plastered, but somehow that just didn't appeal.

I wanted to do something special.

Something different.

So I and my partner, ...
...found our way to the stadium, and we went to this utterly bizarre gig that had been arranged.

Our favourite little band of the last ten years had suddenly managed to secure the first major gig/event in Cardiff's new stadium, and we just had to be there!

Now, it's available at anything from £5.00 on eBay and in HMV sales to £17.99 in Virgin I saw the other day, on DVD.
The DVD was a must-have for me, although ... more

My, this was one strange, strange night!

I was told I couldn't go, but I bought tickets all the same. I was a huge, huge Manic Street Preachers fan with all the "I was a teenage Manics' fan" connotations with it, and I couldn't think of anywhere better to be for my Millenium Eve.

Being a Londoner myself, all my mates were down Trafalgar Square getting plastered, but somehow that just didn't appeal.

I wanted to do something special.

Something different.

So I and my partner, we got on the train to fair Caerdydd, and we found our way to the stadium, and we went to this utterly bizarre gig that had been arranged.

Our favourite little band of the last ten years had suddenly managed to secure the first major gig/event in Cardiff's new stadium, and we just had to be there!

Now, it's available at anything from £5.00 on eBay and in HMV sales to £17.99 in Virgin I saw the other day, on DVD.
The DVD was a must-have for me, although I'd already bought it on video the day it came out.

In all honesty, there's not much difference between the two, and the edition I have, alas, has no special features at all, not even particularly good menus!

It doesn't contain any of the support bands that played that night - as memory serves, Witness, the Super Furry Animals, Feeder and Patrick Jones - which is a shame as there were some great moments during their respective sets.

There is lead-in footage of the fans arriving, and fade-out footage of them leaving, which does give you a taster of the atmosphere we experienced, but it's a shame there are four or five hours of the night missing!

The tracklisting is as follows:

'You Stole The Sun From My Heart',
'Faster',
'Everything Must Go',
'Tsunami',
'The Masses Against The Classes',
'The Everlasting', 'Kevin Carter',
'La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)',
'Rock And Roll Music',
'Ready For Drowning',
'Of Walking Abortion',
'No Surface, All Feeling',
'Motown Junk',
'Motorcycle Emptiness',
'Too Good To Be True',
'Small Black Flowers',
'Australia',
'Elvis Impersonator',
'You Love Us',
'Stay Beautiful',
'If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next',
'A Design For Life'

This comprises pretty much the entire set list, with bonus points about it including the fact that "The Masses Against the Classes" had just gone into the charts at No. 1 and would be the first No. 1 of the new Millenium, which seemed quite exciting at the time.

The DVD captures the show itself pretty well, with good footage of the band in action and the variety of humourous and touching moments they provided turn by turn.

It shows the moments when the crowd would sing along with the band and were moved to dance about and congregate entertained by the turning of the century, and all that.

It doesn't, however, show everything, and that's a marked fact to anyone that had the pleasure of being there.

It seems a shame to me that this couldn't have been made more of, and whilst I appreciate the very few extra bits and pieces, which include the band rehearsing and a very few soundbites backstage, I would have liked to see a lot more.

It almost, watching this, seems strange to believe it ever happened, and it certainly can't convey the sense of occasion that was present at the gig itself, which is a great shame, because in all truth itself, it was one of the best gigs I have ever been to.

I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone who was there because the selection of tracks the band chose to play wouldn't offend, and the sense itself would be irrelevant as you would know, having been there, just what it was like! For example, this misses the most amazing comedy moment of seeing 10,000 people stop walking down an utterly silent major road for a red traffic light, only to continue walking when it went green! And it doesn't have the wonderful thrill of the support acts who built in momentum to make the arrival of the Manics seem something truly special.

If you weren't there, and you do consider yourself a Manics fan, there are a lot better resources out there for enjoying the band live, and unless you're picking this up pretty cheap, I wouldn't say there was anything particularly worth your money. If you can find a copy on video for a quid or two, definitely pick that up, but don't go all out for this DVD.

This does pain me to say somewhat, don't get me wrong, because I am and always will be a massive fan of the band, and over the preceding ten years I'd seen them six or seven times, and this was up there with the other best gig I'd seen them play, it's just, as a DVD presentation, it really doesn't cut it where other music DVDs I've seen, do!

So, worth it if you need a reminder, and if you weren't there, this might just reassure you you didn't miss much! You'd be mistaken thinking that, but from the DVD alone, that's all you'll get!
 

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