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Music has that incredible ability to burn itself into your soul. To remind you of a place, a time – even a state of mind.
We associate certain tracks or certain bands with memories which keep us forever young.
It was 1989 when I first heard the Stone Roses. I’d like to say I was with them from the start but I wasn’t.
I caught the wave like most people during that unfeasibly hot summer when anything seemed possible to a 17-year-old at Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College.
For the next five years or so The Roses provided much of the soundtrack to my youth.
I couldn’t articulate it but, of all the indie bands I liked back then – from Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Carter USM to the Inspiral Carpets and the Happy Mondays, The Roses reigned supreme.
They had tapped into something within that generation and what is remarkable is that their seminal first album is as brilliant now as it was back then.
No, Ian Brown’s vocals weren’t the strongest but strangely that has never mattered to me and I guess many other people.
What matters is the barn-storming tunes, the wonderfully evocative lyrics and the ‘couldn’t give a fuck’ attitude from a band which thinks it can save the world.
And who would bet against them?
Long before Manchester United’s stars ran out to This Is The One at Old Trafford our pool team at the Duke of Wellington pub in Norton used to put it on the jukebox as our warm-up song.
When the Stone Roses reformed last year I was over the moon. When I go to see them at Heaton Park, Manchester, on Sunday it will be me realising an ambition I thought would go unfulfilled.
I’m not bothered about the support bands. The Roses don’t need support bands.
When Sally Cinnamon, Sugar Spun Sister, She Bangs The Drums, Made Of Stone, I Am The Resurrection and the rest weave their magic over 80,000 people I will be back in the early 1990s having the time of my life.
This concert is for the lads of the pool team at the Duke which no longer exists. This gig is for absent friends. This Is The One I’ve waited for…
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
