Live Vault: Manic Street Preachers at Reading 97

Promised this the other day - here's Manic Street Preachers' headlining set from the Reading Festival in 1997. It's always fun to look back at old festival line-ups and see how far up/down the bill certain bands are, since the later a band plays in the day, the bigger they are. For instance - is that Bennett and Subcircus relegating Mogwai to the early afternoon? (The mighty) Audioweb above Embrace? Tiger following Travis? Republica getting a bigger crowd than Stereophonics? Feeder playing before Dog Eat Dog? Oh, hindsight. See the poster for the event here.

As for the Manics... It's one of the best bootlegs I have of theirs. Great setlist - a healthy mix between the old and new, as it was at the time - first outing for 'Ready for Drowning'; big singalong as the intro tape plays the Stealth Sonic remix of 'A Design for Life'; nice antagonism between JDB and Wire ("Just because he wears a dress..."); and a massive Heavenly ending to 'You Love Us'. The sound quality is good, if not incredible.

I wasn't there in '97, though I saw them headline Reading again in 2001. It wasn't all that great, to be honest, although they were introduced by Karl Marx, which was cool.

EDIT: Aug 12: So apparently lots of you are coming to this page. Here's the whole set in two zip files. Maybe check out the rest of the site, yeah?

Part 1
Part 2

00 - Intro Tape
01 - Australia
02 - From Despair to Where
03 - Kevin Carter
04 - Faster
05 - Ready for Drowning
06 - La Tristesse Durera
07 - Yes
08 - Roses in the Hospital
09 - Enola/Alone
10 - Motown Junk
11 - Motorcycle Emptiness
12 - No Surface All Feeling
13 - Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky
14 - This Is Yesterday
15 - Elvis Impersonator
16 - Everything Must Go
17 - A Design For Life
18 - Introducing The Band
19 - You Love Us