Hardwick Live offers last chance to see Manic Street Preachers this summer

Fans of veteran Welsh alternative rock act Manic Street Preachers now have only one chance left to see them in the UK this summer festival season.
Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield live in London last September.  (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images)Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield live in London last September.  (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images)
Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield live in London last September. (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images)

Following their appearance at Cumbria’s Kendal Calling festival at the weekend, the trio have only one British date lined up for the rest of the year thus far.

The bad news for Scottish fans of the band is that it’s in England, but the good news is that it’s only a 90-mile drive south of the border, in County Durham.

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They’re one of two headliners at this year’s Hardwick Live festival near Sedgefield, along with fellow alternative rock act James

James frontman Tim Booth on stage in Linlithgow last August. Photo: Michael GillenJames frontman Tim Booth on stage in Linlithgow last August. Photo: Michael Gillen
James frontman Tim Booth on stage in Linlithgow last August. Photo: Michael Gillen

The 10,000-capacity event takes place on Saturday and Sunday, August 17 and 18, with the Manics headlining the former and James the latter.

James can be seen this side of the border this summer, though, as they’re on in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens on Thursday, August 15, but that’s the only Scottish date on their itinerary as of now for the rest of 2019.

The Zutons, Stiff Little Fingers, Sister Sledge and the Sherlocks are also on the bill for the Saturday at Hardwick Live, and Lisa Stansfield, Ziggy Marley and Billy Bragg will be taking to the stage ahead of James on the Sunday.

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Others acts playing over the weekend include James Walsh, a Certain Ratio and the Joy Formidable.

Tickets cost £108.90 for the weekend, plus £49.50 for camping and parking if required, or £60.50 per day.

For details, go to www.hardwicklive.co.uk

This will be the Manics’ first appearance at Hardwick Live, staged annually since 2013 except in 2016, but James are no strangers to the event, having headlined an earlier one-day incarnation in 2015, with Cast, 10cc and Embrace also on the bill that year.

The Welsh act’s back catalogue now extends to 13 studio LPs following the release of Resistance is Futile, a No 2 hit, in April last year.

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The band – formed in Blackwood in Caerphilly in 1986 and made up, since the disappearance of rhythm guitarist Richey Edwards in 1995, of frontman Bradfield, bassist Nicky Wire and drummer Sean Moore – are best known for their two No 1 singles, 1998’s If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next and 2000’s The Masses Against the Classes, and one chart-topping album, This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours, also released in 1998.

They’ve notched up 10 top-five albums altogether, the others being Everything Must Go, a No 2 in 1996; Know Your Enemy, a No 2 in 2001; greatest-hits set Forever Delayed, a No 4 in 2002; Send Away the Tigers, a No 2 in 2007; Journal for Plague Lovers, a No 3 in 2009; Postcards From a Young Man, a No 3 in 2010; Rewind the Film, a No 4 in 2013; and Futurology, a No 2 in 2014.

They also have eight top-five singles to their name, the others being A Design For Life and Everything Must Go, a No 2 and No 5 respectively in 1996; You Stole the Sun From My Heart, a No 5 in 1999; and three further No 2s – 2004’s The Love of Richard Nixon, 2005’s Empty Souls and 2007’s Your Love Alone is Not Enough.

James, formed in Manchester and together from 1982 to 2001 and since 2007, have six top-five albums on their CV – Gold Mother, a No 2 in 1990; Seven, a No 2 in 1992; Laid, a No 3 in 1993; The Best of James, a No 1 in 1998; Millionaires, a No 2 in 1999; and Girl at the End of the World, a No 2 in 2016.

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Their 13th and latest full-length LP, Living in Extraordinary Times, peaked at No 6 in 2018

They’ve also notched up four top 10 singles – Sound, a No 9 in 1991, and She’s a Star, a No 9 in 1997, as well as Sit Down twice over, a No 2 in 1991 and a No 7 in 1998.

Event organiser John Adamson said: “We are always looking for ways to top previous years and make the festival the highlight of the summer for everyone who attends.

“There are some incredible acts performing at this year’s event.

“Hardwick Live Festival is a fantastic weekend for the whole family, and this year already promises to be one of our best yet.”