Guestlist-only for competition winners of Real Radio.  Myself and Tenuous Links CEO (aka Mr Mel) attended this intimate gig in Graves Gallery (3rd floor of central library) in Sheffield.  Around 40/50 people were there with the mighty voice of the Manics James Dean Bradfield performing acoustically.

The session kicked off with You Stole The Sun From My Heart (which is in fact a song about fans and touring in general). James seemed nervous and was his usual humble modest self. He had sips of water between songs and even at one point had to get rid of his hard boiled sweet and put it on the stage LOL.

Next up was If you Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next. Released in 1998 and their first number 1, the band thought it would be funny to release a long song title from a long album title (This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours), saying that it would be enough to drive radio dj's crazy when announcing it !

This is the Day came next which is a cover of the obscure The The track from 1983.  Brilliant but I personally like the full band version best.

A Q&A session followed with the Real Radio DJ shouting out names of people who'd written out pre-show questions. As always James' answers are intellectual and honest. How can you not love this man? He even told us where the best chippy was in Sheffield.

Everything Must Go. Brilliant hit single from the same name album which saw their huge comeback in 1996.

Next up Your Love Alone is Not Enough. This was a duet between James and Nina Piersson from The Cardigans in 2007 and a blistering hit from the fabulous album (and one of my personal favourites), Send Away the Tigers.

Another Q&A section and this time MRS MEL got to ask one!  I admit I was waiting nervously in the wings in case my name popped out and sure enough it did.  James has a certain knack of looking straight at the person he's talking to like there's nobody else in the room - amazing. He answered each question thoroughly and carefully. What a pro what a star !

On that note, James as he always does, said "may your Gods go with you, thank you and goodnight" and finished as always with Design for Life.  Undoubtedly the best song ever and as Mr Mel acknowledged later (in Frog & Parrot beer garden), "probably the best ever song to only reach no 2".  There's no probably about it, it was. And to think it was kept off by Mark Morrison Return of the Mack !  Grrrrr.

The Manics "don't do" encores. They're much too cool for that.  We'll miss you James as you take 2 years off and look forward to the next album. What a voice. What a guitar player. What a band !