It must be hell when hope dies.
It is hell when music dies.
It's a bad evening to be looking at a manics fanzine after tonight¹s Top of the Pops and the performance of 'There by the Grace of God'. Let's recall - this was the band that dressed as terrorists complete with black balaclavas to perfom Faster on that very same TV show, the band who declared that their first album would outsell Guns'n'Roses and then they would be no more, the band for whom 4 REAL was carved in blood, the band that gave a voice to a substantial part of a generation with dark, brooding yet pulsating songs of real passion. Is it betrayal or are the showers of age, wealth and comfort damping down the flames to mere embers. Even the 'intimate' gig at St David's Hall next month has been taken over with access through a competition on the Carling Live site where you have to part with personal details to even be in with a shout of getting there. But hope still continues to burn. Perhaps the draw will be lucky and I will get to the gig to see if my pessimism is justified. Perhaps the songs from the past will inflame and excite just as they did the first time around. I try, my word I try, to stay optimistic, to keep hoping.