(photo: myspace.com/manics)

Few artists in modern times have been able to coalesce art, politics and music in quite the same way the Manic Street Preachers have.  Watching their progress from punk-glam wasters to proletariat championing sonic crusaders, you can’t help but be dumbstruck at the way their sound and image rubs up against the pap that passes for art.

When the band released Journal For Plague Lovers earlier this year (it’s just been released in North America now), they effectively closed the circle of life and death that started with their 1994 album The Holy Bible, the last album that founding member Richey Edwards appeared on before going missing.  From their, the remaining three Manics went on to release their most commercially successful and critically applauded albums before falling into what some call a state of malaise and irrelevance at the beginning of the new millennium.  Journal For Plague Lovers brings them back to their muse–Richey Edwards–who left his band mates scraps of lyrics and art ideas for subsequent albums.  Edward’s was declared legally dead in November, 2008, making this his final, posthumous contribution to the world of music.  The circle is closed, back where it started.

Last night the Manic Street Preachers played the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto, older, wiser, but no less relevant than the band I saw at the Horseshoe Tavern in August of 1996.  Back then, Edwards’ disappearance was still afresh wound, and they masked their pain and confusion by doing what they thought Richey wanted, which was to continue on with what they were doing.  Backing a brave new record and not having to worry about Richey’s liability as a live performer (his instrument was often turned down so low in the mix that he was barely audible), the three-piece tore through the songs on Everything Must Go like they had everything to prove all over again.  Sadly, I wasn’t there last night when took to the stage, but I’m so glad that Frank at Chromewaves was, bringing back not only his insight into the performance, but some of his amazing photographs, too.  For now, I’ll content myself with the bloody amazing straight-from-soundboard bootleg of that fateful night at the Horseshoe, and try to pick out my screams to sighs from the crowd’s noise.

MP3: Manic Street Preachers “La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)” (Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto 1996-08-24)
MP3: Manic Street Preachers “Jackie Collins Existential Question Time”
Myspace: Manic Street Preachers