There’s something a bit special about seeing Manic Street Preachers in Cardiff. Given that it’s the nearest place of any size to the band’s hometown of Blackwood it’s not surprising that the city should have a huge contingent of fans, but the mark of Manics fans has always been their devotion rather than their quantity and that’s certainly evident tonight. You know you’re at a Manics gigs by the stray feather boa feathers floating around the venue, the home-made t-shirts spray painted with political and philosophical quotes, the leopard skin jackets, the dyed hair, the eyeliner and glitter. (If you can’t visualise this then Flickr is your friend, try here and here.) Also the fact that this style of dress seems to have been adopted with enthusiasm by both genders- and there are a lot of girls here, far more than at your average hard rock gig. When you’re surrounded by so many other cultural aberrations, you feel a little less weird, a little less self-concious. Which is of course precisely the point. As with punk, it’s a state of mind, not a uniform.

It’s been over fifteen years since the Manics first unleashed their cultural terrorism on the world. Since then they’ve gone from punk/metal agitators to ultra-nihilists, then to darlings of the Britpop establishment, then to relative obscurity as they explored musical avenues farther removed from their original incarnation. Latest album Send Away The Tigers returns to more successful musical territory, striking a mid point between Generation Terrorists and Everything Must Go and sounding more natural and more Manics than anything they’ve released in the last ten years. It may not have the anthemic singles of Everything Must Go or the intellectual rigour of The Holy Bible or the guitar pyrotechnics of Generation Terrorists, but it is the sound of the Manics remembering who they are and us remembering why we fell in love with them in the first place. Leave all this material belief/Remember the reasons that made us be.

It’s fitting, then, that the Cardiff gig feels even more like a homecoming than usual. After excellent support band Cherry Ghost have entertained with their brooding Doves-esque atmospheric rock, the stage curtain raises on a massive leopard skin backdrop and the sound of synthesised strings fill the air. James Dean Bradfield adds in the riff to Motorcycle Emptiness, and off we go.

Then Autumnsong, followed by You Love Us. Military uniforms seem to be the order of the day, and a noticeably leaner Bradfield is drenched in sweat after ten minutes. You know what I was saying about playing your songs with intensity, like they actual mean something? Crowd anarchy occurs during an unexpected rendition of Slash ‘n’ Burn, an song with an impossibly fiddly metal riff dedicated “to all those who came to see us at Treforest Tech 20 years ago.” The recent addition of a second touring guitarist beefs up the sound considerably, and 1985 has a raw power not heard on the studio recording. Policemen battle striking miners on the video screens.

The set is heavy on songs from Generation Terrorists, and from Send Away The Tigers we get the three singles plus the title track. Know Your Enemy, Lifeblood and The Holy Bible contribute just one track each to the set list, with She Is Suffering dedicated to missing band member Richey Edwards and legendary Cardiff independent music shop Spillers Records- “Richey’s first university, where he bought the records which inspired him to write all those songs.” During an acoustic interlude Bradfield plays solo versions of The Everlasting and Suicide Is Painless- “Our first proper hit, recorded about five minutes away from here, in an amazing fucking studio called Soundspace. And Cardiff city council knocked it fucking down, in their wisdom.”

Nicky Wire returns wearing a ridiculously short pink mini-skirt for the last few songs. Bradfield launches into a rendition of the Cult’s She Sells Sanctuary, but diverts into Motown Junk after a verse. Then the welcome surprise of Little Baby Nothing, and the anthemic Design For Life to finish. Welsh crowds are renownded for their singing and tonight they don’t disapoint. ‘HOPE LIES WITH THE PROLES’ flashes up on the screens.

So yeah, it was fun. If you want some more Manics, they’ve released a fairly cheesy Christmas single, which you can get from their site as a free download. You know you want to.