These songs means more to most people in this room than the national anthem..

In these times, the modern malaise of confusion, of not fitting in, of boys trapped in the bodies of men, of sitting on the train and the tube and the bus and the motorway, feeling somehow like a fake, a boy surrounded by adults, faking it amongst the rest of the fakers, waiting for the big reveal, the moment when God's hand reaches down, and pulls off the mask to reveal the terror of affluence and the desire of poverty, when we alone are exposed whilst everyone else is safe – in this climate of fear we need things to believe in.

“Do The Manic Street Preachers mean anything to anybody?” – Morrissey.

On his first solo tour, James Dean Bradfield, vocalist and workhorse of the now-neglected Manic Street Preachers, offers what can only be described as a diluted, yet distilled, concentrated essence of the band. Gone are the sloganeering, the moments of sixth form hectoring, and lines like "Mr Stalin, Sexual Epoch/Kruschev, self love in mirrors" - in comes a new currency : the emotional truth of our lives. The vast and uncharted terrain of feelings.

Backed by a competent, but unexceptional band, James Dean follows the same template as Manics club gigs of yore : most of the new album, a few oldies, and an acoustic interlude. In this context, his solo record, "The Great Western" sounds - and is - to all intents and purposes, the next Manics album : a widescreen vista of songs about some emotional longing for a land that could never exist. Unlike the Manics, Bradfield has stepped out of the shadows of his compatriots and written the lyrics that, despite lacking the eloquence of the Manics, still deal in the same sense and sensibilities. Not that it matters : when the opener "Émigré" bolts from the gates, it still feels the same, evokes the same emotions, voices the same fears we all keep hidden in our suits and our repressed smiles.

Like all solo artists, the set is an exercise in moments and memories : fans absorb the new material yet wait patiently for the old songs – songs that remind them of a different time, a time that may never have existed. The new solo material is vibrant and vital, yet suffers only from a lack of familiarity. If it had the words “Manic Street Preachers” on the cover, it’d be snapped up wth enthusiasm. The brand is as important as the band.

The main set is peppered with Manics classics new and old - representing most of the bands era's with acoustic versions of "Kevin Carter" and "A Design For Life" (spine-tingling in whatever form you hear it), as well as full on band takes of "Ocean Spray", and a climatic "No Surface, All Feeling", the show represents some of the emotional gamut. However, in the final strait of the show the emotional double whammy is the pairing of two of the most emotional songs Bradfield has ever written - "Still A Long Way To Go", the hymn to the virtues and vices of repression, of listening to what you keep silent…  I can't give you an A to Z, there's some things I just cant show, just try to disbelieve your eyes, there's a long way to go - is as eloquent as anything the Manics have ever done. I'm lost in my own world in a crowded room, before the guitar strum turns into a sublime, beautiful, shot through the soul, spellbinding From Despair To Where. A song that means more to most people in this room than the national anthem.

It is a privilege to live in times when music as good as this lives and breathes. Music like this isn’t just the tinny sound pouring forth from iPods in commuter belts, isn’t just the beat that we dance to in nightclubs near closing time. Music like this is the stuff that keeps us sane, gives us the community our fractured society lacks, and the narrative to our lives capitalism can never feed us.

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