Tuesday 25 October 2011

Viva La Roses!

I did something strange last Friday. Something i haven't done for a long time. Something if i'm being honest, i thought i'd never do again.

I got genuinely excited about going to see a band play a gig. 

Not any old band though and certainly not any old gig. The band in question is The Stone Roses.

So after the best part of an hour refreshing web pages whilst holding on the phone i managed to secure a couple of tickets for the resurrection of my generations version of The Beatles at Heaton Park in Manchester next year.

Carl Stanley did similar....here's his take on the events of last week. 

Rob H








The Stone Roses - Back And All Soul'd Out
The great ticket rush of Friday 21st for Stone Roses concerts was like nothing ever seen before, 220,000 tickets, all 3 days sold out in 68 minutes, the quickest in history for any UK band.


Everyone & their uncle must have had a go at 9.30 am that Friday morning, two phones on the go while manning the PC getting wound up by the minute & hammering the redial button, dreams were made & lost in side the first fifteen minutes of the tickets going on line.

The sheer joy of those who so luckily got through on the phone or PC for the chance to spend about £220  on four tickets could be seen on Facebook with posts like..."got mine!" which would of obviously pissed off the many while staring at their monitor screens with the phone welded to their ear only to hear that dreaded Ticket-Line recorded message everyone probably knows off by heart now,..the voice of that monotone voiced woman who provides the very polite but annoying..."sorry, due to a high demand these lines are busy, please try again later" message that I'm sure many had ringing in their head for hours after.
To be honest Ticket Master & co should of knocked up another message that went  "you know its never going to happen you fool!......but please try again later"

Some great stories about like one lucky lad who got through twice on the phone & ended up with EIGHT tickets for the Friday night suddenly found his ex, who apparently swore she'd never look at him again & was now in another relationship, at his door three hours after he'd told his mates he'd got them with, or a lad I know who was trying to get tickets on the phone & on line listening to the radio that had some kid who'd just won four VIP tickets in a competition he entered by mistake saying he might go or give em away, because he "wasn't really into them" & would of preferred Take That tickets, this lad got so wound up hearing this ungrateful kid on the radio while getting nowhere trying to get his own tickets he stood up and kicked his living room door and put his foot straight through it!...Maybe the lad on the radio, with the VIP tickets that he's not bothered about, could take him?

And then there's the press conference itself, which was great for loads of reasons, listening to Mani's 'Bernard Manning' deliveries, Ian giving it to the guy from The Mail, Reni for saying more to the press than he did in all his years with the Roses & John for simply showing up.
But most of all it was the announcement of new material, well maybe, but by the sound of it there seems to be a good chance of it happening: a world tour, new tunes (and hopefully some Squire art work to accompany it all) amounts to a full on come-back - could this be the true second coming for the band? The one they went out to do sixteen long years ago.
They looked and sounded like they really want it and have that fire in their bellies still, despite Reni's claims of being 'rusty' and that 'drummers should quit in their late thirties.
I don't think he would be doing this if he thought he couldn't, in fact I'm really looking forward to hearing him do his thing again, remember the early 90's when bands on the scene unashamedly jumped his style, or tried to; like Blur's "There's No Other Way" & The Mock Turtles "Can You Dig it". As well as those magic backing vocals on tracks like " Going Down" its a very welcome return for this talented musician, Joe Strummer said "any band is only as good as it's drummer", in that case the signs are looking great because The Roses have probably the finest drummer of the past 25 years.

When the band were doing press around the late 80's early 90's They'd say "hopefully people who come to see us will get into it and'll go home and do something them selves" it could have been a sly dig at the bands of the time going through a Stone Roses make-over but I really believe the band believed that ethos themselves.......and probably still do.  
That spirit would be one of the biggest things that could come out of all this, inspiring 'The Kids' again - like Liam was inspired to go out and put Oasis together after watching The Roses fronted by Ian Brown at the International one night back in 88. He said it changed his life and if last Friday's ticket stampede is anything to go by......he wasn't alone.

Viva La Roses!
Carl Stanley  - October 2011