Manic Street Preachers have announced a pair of arena concerts to benefit NHS workers in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

The trio announced the December shows at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena by saying: “We wanted to do something to show our appreciation, love and respect for the NHS and its amazing brave workers. One free show and one fundraising show seemed the best way for us to express our deep gratitude for all their heroic work.”

The first show, on 4 December, will be free for all UK NHS workers, and will be available to apply for at 7pm on Friday 10 April. Tickets are limited to two per worker, with workers allowed to bring a non-NHS guest. Any staff that work within an NHS hospital are eligible, “including, but not limited to, doctors, nurses, support workers, porters and cleaners”.

The following night will be a fundraising concert available to anyone, with proceeds going to NHS Wales. There is a limit of four tickets per person, and they will also be available on Friday 10 April, via Ticketmaster.

Manic Street Preachers have often been politically and socially active in their career since their breakthrough in 1992. They have supported leftwing figures such as Tony Benn and Arthur Scargill, played for Fidel Castro in Cuba in 2001, and titled their 1998 No 1 album This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours after a quote by Aneurin Bevan, the Labour politician who headed up the creation of the NHS in the late 1940s. But they also became disenchanted with the Labour party, criticising Tony Blair and Jeremy Corbyn in recent years.

Their most recent album was 2018’s Resistance is Futile.