Manic Street Preachers have shared a clip of them rehearsing The Cure’s ‘Close To Me’ ahead of Robert Smith’s Teenage Cancer Trust shows.
In December, Smith revealed the full line-ups for his curated run of shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March, with the Manics set to headline on March 26 and The Joy Formidable also on the bill.
On Saturday (February 7), the band posted a surprise clip of them in the studios during rehearsals for the show. The band are not visible in the video, but you can hear them playing through the intro to the band’s classic single, released on 1985’s ‘The Head On The Door’.
The band also teased the possibility of them playing it during the show itself, writing: “Had some fun playing this in rehearsals this week – just the three of us reliving our youth for a fleeting moment – (Albert Hall maybe???)”
Smith is stepping in as the curator of the annual Teenage Cancer Trust gigs this year in the place of The Who’s Roger Daltrey, and other names playing include Garbage, Wolf Alice, Chvrches, Elbow and My Bloody Valentine. See the full line-ups here and find any remaining tickets here.
Manics frontman James Dean Bradfield thanked Smith for inviting them to the shows as it allows them to make “a return to one of our favourite London venues”, and he promised “a couple of surprises up our sleeves for the night”.
The band were also invited by Smith to play his curation of Meltdown Festival in London, also at the Royal Albert Hall, in 2018, and during that set they covered The Cure’s ‘In Between Days’. Check that version out below.
Reviewing that show, NME wrote: “For a band who have headlined Glastonbury and sold out pretty much every enornodome, it’s touching to see the Manics so clearly humbled and driven by tonight’s sense of occasion and the honour of their invitation. While many of their peers and contemporaries have withered and died or fallen into a legacy circuit pastiche, Manic Street Preachers are clearly enjoying their lingering champagne years. Alongside The Cure, they’ll eternally reign as national treasures.”
Ahead of that show, Bradfield spoke to NME about his admiration of Smith. “It’s weird, Robert Smith occupies this territory where he’s kind of reclusive,” he said. “You never see pictures of him, you never hear rumours of him, he just comes out on a tour to do something then he just slips back away. He’s almost like a kind of secret agent. It’s almost like he’s in the witness protection scheme. I love how he seems reclusive but without any of the drama that you would traditionally attach to that.”
The Manics later released a version of ‘In Between Days’ that they recorded for the BBC as part of a playlist of new and lost recordings in 2022.
Both The Cure and the Manics involved in this year’s Record Store Day, with the former’s ‘Greatest Hits’ and ‘Acoustic Hits’ getting an exclusive re-release, while Bradfield’s solo album ‘The Great Western’ and Nicky Wire’s ‘Intimism’ will also be available.
The Cure also won the first two Grammys of their career last week – picking up Best Alternative Music Album and Best Alternative Music Performance.
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