Manic Street Preachers @ Star Hall, Hong Kong International Trade & Exhibition Centre 26.11.08

How happiness runs fast! Yesterday my heart kept beating hard because of the excitement that I would see the manics again, seemed like i myself was manic again. It has been a long while i haven't seen their live and i really miss them badly. Dug out my long-hidden feather boa and wondered if I should also put a tiara on (but sadly still with that monotonous and hateful "office lady" outfit, monster!), i became an oddball again. of course things would be much normal if i was in the uk. Hey it was the manics gig and boa, tiara, eyeliner or army coat should be the official dress code for the entry, but no, this was the other side of the globe so i could hardly find another boa lover except the one on stage.

There was not really a big crowd, as the manics was never a darling in this place when they were in their prime, not to say when they all become the chubby middle-aged rockers now. Maybe I was loyal, subjective or blind, or maybe I was so clairvoyant to ignore one's outlook (oh really?) and see the essence of the soul, I still found them utterly cool and powerful (...oh passages of praise, i'm unstoppable and delirious again, my ususal symptoms after meeting those favourite persons of mine). The gig was opened by Motorcycle Emptiness, which got every "real" manics fans high from the start. New and old songs were quite well-balanced, 3 from the latest album (Send The Tiger Away, The Autumn Song, and Your Love Alone Is Not Enough [which i dislike most]), 1 from Lifeblood (1985, oh but i love this album very much), 1 from Know Your Enemy (Ocean Spray), several from their two most popular albums, 1 from Holy Bible (only Faster, not enough!) 1 from Gold Against Soul and 3 from Generation Terrorists. They even performed Motown Junk but since Richey went away, James no longer sang the line of "I laughed when Lennon got shot". I could still see the painful eyes from James whenever there was some reference to Richey between the lyrics (or was it my imagination?), maybe that's because a court order was just granted a few days ago to declare the death of the man (oh no!).

Here I can only jot down what I saw and what i heard, but not quite what I felt/feel. When i finish this entry, i feel my words are so plain and dry, they don't really reflect my feeling at all! and i feel so illiterate now. The more i write, the more uselessness i feel for words and language. Maybe i should simply write: THEY WERE PERFECT. That sums up my feeling and their performance (but Mr Wire no longer dressed himself as a doll, what a pity!)


"This wonderful world for purchase power"