It's 'The Everlasting' that clinches it. On record its world-weariness strays towards dreariness. Here, the stark beauty expands to fill the cavernous space of Wembley, and the track becomes that rare thing: a universal anthem that connects on an intimate level. If a Greatest Hits tour offers us a chance to coolly appraise a band, then what tonight tells us is that the Manic Street Preachers are better than we ever realised.
But first there's a bit of trouble to report. Before the Manics appear, a rambling old Northerner invades the stage and grabs the mic. He mumbles and wheezes incoherently, clearly confused, and bellows in terrible physical pain. Sorry, it's Ian Brown and he's trying to sing. Brown's boorish moodiness is the polar opposite of the Manics embracing intellect, and whilst his music is a deft, hypnotic mixture of Hoxton chic and Northern Soul, his voice is gruesome. The Manics are more used to protesting about instruments of torture than encouraging them.
After delivering a vicious, sustained Moss Side beating on Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean', leaving it prostrate and bleeding, Brown rambles through his own material, sneering at the unreceptive crowd. His short set ends in a barrage of insults. "Stay ugly," he barks at the booing crowd, "stay comatose."
The Manics thrive on the contrast. Visually they are instantly familiar - James Dean Bradfield a smart, paunchy bank manager and Nicky Wire a Barnsley prostitute in his fishnets and leopard skin - but their music is transformed. 'Kevin Carter' and 'Tsunami', both ordinary and unfocused on record, become muscular rock stompers, revealing Bradfield as a phenomenal live guitarist and singer. 'There By The Grace of God', usually as thin and aloof as Nico, becomes mournfully deep and textured. Tonight's set is almost entirely singles, with the same strengths and limitations as the greatest hits album it promotes. It relies heavily on the commercial smashes of the latest nineties, and neglects 'The Holy Bible', their boldest and most original album.
Yet tonight shows just how far the Manics have come. Early singles like 'You Love Us' have an undeniable, bombastic impact, but they are sixth form scribbles compared to the angry maturity of 'Everything Must Go'. From their first album, only 'Motorcycle Emptiness' rises above the slogans and posturing, the keening delicacy of its riff and the simple heartbreak of its chorus making it one of the most moving hymns of the nineties.
'Masses Against The Classes', meanwhile, has the economy and brutality of a bullet, its Beatles harmony collapsing under a raging chorus that nearly rips Wembley's roof off. Weak, inconsequential semi-punk like 'Stay Beautiful' seem embarrassed to be in its presence. The Manics, almost uniquely, have a vision that extends beyond their pop star navels, and it's a fuel that keeps them burning long after most of their contemporaries have sputtered out.
The point is proved by a transfixing, sighing rendition of 'If You Tolerate This'. That the Manics can take a complex dissection of the Spanish Civil War to Number One is an achievement in itself. That the tune is beautiful enough to crumple the hardest heart makes it high art. Equally, 'A Design For Life' might be a scathing indictment of drug-numbed mainstream culture, but wrapping it in a supremely singable chorus is its masterstroke.
An imperfect band, but their failures touch more than most bands successes.
