Everything happens for a reason? Could a well-fingered cliché really save my life?

Before I take you on a fantastical journey to the rock show there are a couple of things that you just have to know; the first is that I absolutely, positively (and this is a great big Johansen L-U-V) loved the Manic Street Preachers when those first two singles on Heavenly Records burnt a hole in the stunted surroundings that created the band and, thereby, in mine. Blackwood, the Welsh (piss?) town that numbed out an eight-legged mess of eyeliner and spraypaint, lies less than five miles away from my hometown. This band, this musical Molotov cocktail, spoke to me, to people like me. Secondly, I hated the band's acceptance by the music papers and journalists who were happy to dismiss them as a joke band until Richey turned in a masterpiece and then turned his back on it all. Did I really dislike 'Postcards From A Young Man' as much as I made out, or was my mind clouded by the cancerous ads and reviews from bandwagon jumping press citing it as, seriously, "both incredibly jolly and jolly good" - this wasn't my band. They had to change, I knew this. I understood but I couldn't accept. Thirdly, as well as being the day yet another brain-washed loon predicted that the World was gonna end, this was the day that I turned forty. World ending to some but, to me, just another day to hate more people.

...and was I ready to hate. "Too much comfort to get decadent?" The beige patrons of the modern Manic Street Preachers arena show that awaited me in Cardiff International Arena thought that hearing the F-word and spending tomorrow's Mail On Sunday money on a commemorative tour mug was decadent...surely. With perma-scowl stitched onto my head like a medical guinea pig once bereft of face via canine attack, I found that the car stereo - still not speaking to me after a torrent of anti-electrical abuse. Seriously, if I was Snake Plissken with that 'World Code' remote in Escape To LA you wouldn't be reading this now - refused to play the blood-boiler of a disc that I had prepped to get me fired up for musical moral carnage. Instead, a quick fumble of the glove compartment turned up a copy of 'Forever Delayed', the Manic Street Preachers greatest hits compilation from nearly a decade ago. And it was, for the sake of Cotton Trader-ed weekend warriors and automaton aunts, possibly the best thing that could ever have happened.

Yeah, the skip button got a hammering but, and this was key, there was enough here to take me back, back to when this music and these lyrics were oxygen. I looked to the past, not the future, and it made me cry.

I was already worrying that the stroke of midnight some nineteen hours earlier had turned me soft (or, as 'edgy' comedians say, into a girl) when I ran into some old friends, actually enjoying a conversation with patrons of an arena rock show that didn't consist of me laughing in the face of their inferior knowledge. The Joy Formidable, yet another support act surely doomed to have me spouting "I saw the fucking Wildhearts support them a couple of times, remember", appeared on stage and, well, were a bit special. A trio from North Wales formed from the ashes of Manchester indie rock outfit Tricky Nixon, they have an incredible drummer who plays side-on in an impressive display of Robert Sweet-esque visual timekeeping. He is the rock that makes them roll. Frontwoman Ritzy Bryan exhibits a fire in her belly that her stature is possibly surprised at itself. The band play a noisy, dirty indie pop and are excellent.

I stand in the arena looking like a pop star determined to shut out the ecru and blinker myself into liking this. My favourite spectator sport of people-watching is relegated to idiot-listening and, not surprisingly, there are many competitors. "What's going to be behind that curtain?" asks one concert veteran. "There'll be a drummer, up on a platform" replies his learned friend. I am still placing my house keys between my fingers awaiting the prime moment to attack when something magical happens, something that sounds remarkably like the Hanoi Rocks version of 'Up Around The Bend' ringing out over the PA.

The house lights die and it gets better. The two huge video screens bookending the stage fire up with a hair-prickling, throat-lumping montage of vintage Manics footage. There is a huge roar when Richey's face fills the screen and when the band appear and open with 'Stay Beautiful' I'm gone. I'm 21 again, 21 years of living, but now it means something to me.

There are times, of course, where the slick arena rock of songs like 'Your Love Alone Is Not Enough' and '(It's Not War) Just The End Of Love' leave you feeling a little guilty for enjoying them, and also times where the set threatened to flatline - 'Let Robeson Sing' and 'My Little Empire' for example - but James Dean Bradfield introduces one such moment ('Solitude Sometimes Is') in such joyous old school Valleys fashion - "This one is off 'Lifeblood' so some of you might wanna go out for a can of Breaker" - that I can't help but let these go. These moments are, happily, outweighed in the memory by a setlist littered with great songs.

'Motorcycle Emptiness' appears early and is swiftly followed by a glorious one-two of 'Life Becoming A Landslide' and 'Enola Alone', the latter ending in a 'Safe European Home' sound clash. I'm surprised to see that not that many people around me actually appear to know the words to the former but I am also surprisingly forgiving; destroyed by madness? 'Faster' is dedicated to "the greatest rock 'n' roll poet in this or any other century" by his one-time writing partner, a less outrageous Nicky Wire than was perhaps expected (although he does appear in a Welsh flag mini skirt later in the set) and is fantastic. 'Slash N' Burn' does what its title suggests and, following a three song burst of which only 'You Stole The Sun From My Heart' is truly memorable, a coupling of the incredible 'Of Walking Abortion' and 'Motown Junk' turns this performance from good to great. Seriously. I know. Bradfield's refusal to sing the "I laughed when Lennon got shot" line in recent times does irk a little though.

'If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next' is good, very good in fact, and precedes a Bradfield solo spot which sees a run through of 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You', the Frankie Valli hit that was adopted by a nation and is quite rightly remembered by JDB as being the soundtrack to "so many bad fucking sporting moments" - natives of other countries may not understand. An acoustic 'Everything Must Go' follows.

The band return for cool stabs at 'Masses Against The Classes' and 'Suicide Is Painless (Theme From MASH)' before Bradfield tears into an impromptu version of 'You Shook Me All Night Long', substituting the opening word with "Cardiff", before peeling out the timeless riff to 'You Love Us' which threatens to be the rock dropped onto my head, putting me out of my misery, euthanizing my doubt and surprise. 'A Design For Life', what else, closes the set and, seriously I love this, they still don't do an encore. The stage invasions during trashy versions of 'Repeat' may be long gone but, fuck, I love that, no matter how adored they became, how popular they now are, the Manic Street Preachers still send people home wanting more. Fuck 'em.

I know that the band I worshipped are gone forever. I understand how and why people love the radio-friendly pop smears that they turn out with startling regularity. I have argued with myself over these things for a decade and a half and, while the make-up sex is never as good, I have come to a conclusion, one that could surprise some people. I just can't dislike this band anymore. I can't stomach churning out this tired hyperbole any longer. I saw an aura around the Manic Street Preachers tonight and, no matter who was around me, no matter what they were wearing or what lyrics they knew, I saw safety-pinned to that aura a quote that wormed its way into my consciousness almost two decades ago, courtesy of a pair of inspirational lyricists who pointed me in the direction of so much....

"To all who pass that they may see, Rock 'N' Roll was a part of me."