Welsh icons look back on their millennium-defining New Year’s Eve gig

As we said goodbye to 2025, one of the greatest Welsh bands looked back at a past New Year’s Eve when they saw in the new millennium with their biggest headline show to date.

The footage from the Manic Street Preacher’s New Year’s Eve 1999 gig at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium resurfaced on their Facebook page just in time for this year’s celebrations.

“A homecoming on a scale few bands ever get to experience. Were you there?” The rockers asked in the caption of the video showing thousands of fans dancing to A Design for Life.

The brand new Millennium Stadium had opened its doors only six months prior to Manic Millennium, its first concert ever, billed as “the world’s biggest indoor music event”.

Sixty-thousand fans attended to see the Manics, supported by two other iconic Welsh bands who helped define the ‘Cool Cymru’ movement, Feeder and Super Furry Animals.

The Manics’ two and a half hour set was described as ‘electric’, with a short break at midnight for New Year’s celebrations.

James Dean Bradfield treated the audience to a few acoustic songs, before the full band returned to close out the night with A Design for Life, also broadcast to an estimated two billion television viewers.

Twenty-six years later, fans flocked to the video’s comments to join in with the nostalgia. One wrote: “I was there with my boyfriend (now my husband) and our good mate (later our best man).

“A bloody great night, although fairly sober as it took hours to get served at the bar. Would have loved to have seen the fireworks at midnight, we could hear them. Other than that, an awesome night! A brilliant way to see in a new millennium! Manics forever.”

Another commenter explained: “I turned 18 at midnight! Amazing birthday present from the Manics. Rewatched the VHS release over and over when it was released.”

The world feared the Millennium Bug, but instead got something much better: Nicky Wire’s legs.