Resurrected
We’ve seen it before. Band gets famous, Band Tours, Band splits and then Band gets back together. For The Stone Roses however, this never looked a likely deal, until last year of course.
The Stone Roses rose to fame very quickly and at that same pace crashed, burned and exploded into a begillion pieces. During that short lived period they became one of the biggest bands in England, a fire spread that seemingly no one was going to extinguish, except the band. Despite an apparent irreparable split, those pieces gradually started to come together, showing that time really can be the healer of all things.
A Fresh Start
Having gone their separate ways, they all continued to perform. Ian Brown had his own material under is name, John Squire founded The Seahorses and embarked on a solo career also and Mani became the basist for Primal Scream. Reni was the least heard of during this time and I genuinely don’t know what he was doing. Which considering his phenomenal ability on the drums, it’s almost unbelievable that he stayed in the shadows.
On October 18th the band made an announcement for an NME press conference live that they would be back together for a few gigs and depending on their own view, perhaps more. There it was, set in stone that the Roses would be playing Heaton Park. Which turned out to be the fastest selling concert in UK history, 220,000 tickets selling out in just 68 minutes.
Razzmatazz
It was then announced that The Stone Roses would be playing some warm up gigs out of the country in front of a smaller crowd. My friend Simon who is an avid fan of the Roses (Getting Tickets to all three dates of Heaton Park etc) decided he was going and asked me along. Having tickets for each night we flew to Barcelona for a few days.
I have to be totally honest, the very first time I heard The Stone Roses I found them boring. I really didn’t find them interesting at all, it just seemed to drone. To be fair, I was sitting in a car travelling to the lake district getting cranky as it was and then listening to an album I’d never heard before. I should have listened a little more closely.
It’s strange that I’d agree to go see a band that I didn’t particularly like at first, but I was fully aware I’d never really given them a shot and I was interested to see this relic of a band’s reform. In preparation, I listened to The Stone Roses album again and I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, it was four years on since I’d last listened to their music, but I didn’t have the same opinion as last time.
However I still wasn’t ready to concede I liked this band… only a little. The rest came later. Simon and I turned up at the Razzmatazz venue picked up our tickets and queued. Once we got in we were surprised to see just how small the venue was and how empty it still was, it filled up pretty quick.
Continued on the next post
