“I wanted to prove that we were still a band tough enough to play The Holy Bible": Manic Street Preachers announce The Holy Bible live album

The Holy Bible captures the band performing the album in full back in December 2014 across three nights at The Roundhouse in London for the first (and possibly last) time. It will be available as a 2x12" and 3CD deluxe edition, alongside a new Steven Wilson spatial audio mix of the original album and Kieran Evans' concert film Be Pure, Be Vigilant, Behave, shot across every night of the tour. "I wanted to prove that we were still a band tough enough to play The Holy Bible," says singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield. "I wanted to prove to people that being on stage and hammering it through together like a military unit was still part of us. We still have that muscle memory, that badge of honour." "I'd had really bad flu at the Roundhouse shows," he continues. "I'd lost my voice, and the night of the first Roundhouse show I was on steroids. I don't know where that adrenaline came from, but it was something almost supernatural." "The Holy Bible took a long time to arrive at a place where we felt we could reinvestigate the songs, after years of simply letting them be," bassist Nicky Wire adds. "I was more than a little reticent about the physical, technical and emotional demands t...