The Stone Roses
One perfect album, one legendary open-air gig, one catastrophic follow-up, and a reunion that proved Manchester never forgot them. The Stone Roses defined a moment.
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The Stone Roses’ debut album came out in May 1989 and Manchester lost its mind. Ian Brown’s drawling vocals over John Squire’s shimmering guitar – Waterfall, She Bangs the Drums, I Wanna Be Adored, I Am the Resurrection – it was the sound of a city that already had acid house in its bloodstream discovering that guitar music could feel the same way. Reni on drums was absurdly good. Mani’s bass locked it all together.
They came from various bits of south Manchester. Brown grew up in Timperley, Squire in Chorlton. Early gigs at the International on Anson Road, which became a key venue for the Madchester scene. The Hacienda connection was real – the Roses and the dance scene fed off each other in ways that hadn’t happened before.
Spike Island in May 1990 was meant to be their coronation. 27,000 people in a field in Widnes. The sound was terrible by most accounts, but nobody cared. Then it all went wrong. Legal battles with Silvertone Records. Five years of silence. The Second Coming in 1994 was a decent hard rock album that wasn’t what anyone wanted. They limped on until 1996 and split.
The reunion gigs at Heaton Park in June 2012 were enormous – three nights, 220,000 tickets, the biggest shows Manchester had seen. It worked because the songs still worked. They toured again, made noises about a third album that never appeared, and quietly stopped in 2017. Squire’s paintings still pop up around Manchester. The International is gone. But put on the debut album and it still sounds like a perfect summer that actually happened.
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