Ian Brown has seen most sides of the music industry. The Stone Roses debut album has been lauded and loved in equal measure for well over a decade. The Roses were the coolest name to drop in '89. Then came a bitter break up with John Squire, Brown's Johnny Marr figure. Things got messy and a little over five years after that legendary debut came 'Second Coming' – little more than an extended suicide note from the band. Wonderfully after years of airbrushing The Stone Roses from history Brown has finally seen fit to revisit some of the classics. I'd heard that he had started playing old Roses tunes a little while ago but to experience it was something a little special. It reminded me somewhat of watching George Bush being ushered back to the White House for a second term.You kind of knew it was going to happen but still couldn't quite believe it when it did.
 | | Brown revisited some classics |
The gig was only 10 minutes old when a handful of chiming guitar notes begun
'Made Of Stone'. The crowd roared. Brown smiled. Everything was good in the
world. Soon after, scarcely long enough for the crowd to take stock, came 'Sally Cinnamon' and 'Waterfall'. Then 'She Bangs the Drums' – the bass line for which is even more familiar to most than their date of birth. Sure, it wasn't Mani but to this was no time to nit-pick. It wasn't entirely a Stone Roses love-in though. If anything F.E.A.R. from the superb 'Music of the Spheres' was the highlight of the night. Even better, 'Love Like a Fountain' and 'Dolphins were Monkeys' which came immediately after the first batch of Roses songs more than held their own. His latest single 'Keep What You Got' was similarly fitting. The emperor had shown us his new clothes and not only were they real, they fit perfectly. The gig, perhaps Leadmill's best of the year, was brought to a climax with the timeless 'I Wanna Be Adored'. As inspired and apt closer as ever there was. "The past was yours but the future's mine" he sang on 'She Bangs the Drums'. You can't help feel that he set his sights a little low. At the moment he's got them both. Ian Brown played at The Leadmill on Wednesday, 24 November, 2004.
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