Manic Street Preachers headlined the final night on the NME Stage and played a set that included hits from the 20 year long back catalogue.
Opening with ‘Faster’ the band dedicated 1998 classic ‘If You Tolerate This Then Your Children will be Next’ to Bullet For My Valentine, who had played the set before and, like the Manics, also hail from Wales. That very song was the subject of another dedication – to former Welsh football John Charles. Singer James Dean Bradfield announced “This song is for John Charles, a Welshman who made his name in Leeds and Bullet For My Valentine, a f*cking great metal band from Bridgend. “
Midway through the set, they covered Nirvana’s ‘Pennyroyal Tea’, which became the second cover of the day by the grunge band after Dirty Pretty Things had performed ‘In Bloom’ earlier on.
They then continued with the hits, though bassist Nicky Wire admitted that picking a set list was hard work, whilst also adding a dedication: “It's really difficult to pack twenty years of hits into an hour. This is something old, something written by the genius hand of Mr Richey Edwards," he said, before playing ‘Little Baby Nothing’.
The Manics then continued on with ‘You Love Us’ and finished on ‘Design For Life’, their 1996 number two hit.
