Being the younger sibling in a shared room is a fairly thankless affair. His mess is somehow yours as well and nothing in the room actually belongs to you (it's his h-fi, his telly etc) because there's no point in buying two. Just once in a while however being the younger of two brothers sharing a room is a godsend. He buys magazines that you wouldn't normally pick up and buys albums from bands that you wouldn't normally hear from. Our Mark is much more of a metal head than I am but I got influenced towards that type of music for most of my formative years and I still love it. He's no slave to a particular style though which is one of his greatest credits - he will genuinely listen to most things and give an honest appraisal of it. So it was in the Spring of 1989 when he picked up an album that changed the music that I would listen to forever. Mark liked it enough to play it a fair amount but whenever he was out I played it all the time on top of that. The album was the first, epononymously titled, effort from The Stone Roses and it changed my musical tastes completely.
It was the summer between primary school and secondary school for me and everything in my life was changing. The world seemed to get much bigger and I had recently found that I had a voice and was willing to use it. People who know me now will find this hard to believe but at primary school I was an incredibly introverted, bookish type who just kind of got on with things quietly and effectively stayed out of trouble. When I started secondary I saw it as an opportunity to express myself a bit further and I had the perfect tool for it, the Sony Walkman. Armed with an actual bought copy of The Stone Roses I set about getting people with such previously diverse tastes as Irish republican music to outright cheesy pop (you know who you are owners of Jason Donovan and Bros albums) to listen to this new thing and see what they made of it in an attempt to be cool. That cassette got passed around like a prison porn mag. Copies were made and even copies of copies were made. It, in what advertisers these days would no doubt say, went viral. Now I'm not claiming to be the only one who was responsible for this. There were a few others that I could name who were in the same position as me with siblings who had introduced them to it and they, like me were disseminating the album to our year group. There were even some cooler kids who had discovered them off their own back doing the same, albeit with a more detached attitude.
Anyway, it was out there and gradually it became the most important piece of music to listen to and the hunt was on for other stuff by them. They had released a few singles before the album that didn't fare all that well but are now regarded as classic tracks by fans (my first ever snog for what it's worth was with a girl with an Elephant Stone t-shirt on at the St Lucy's youth club disco) and then copies of live gigs were to follow.
I was too young to go and see them at Glasgow Green in 1990 being only twelve and all. By that time, as often happens, the music becomes entangled with a fashion and fans of the Stone Roses (and the Happy Mondays and many other Madchester oriented bands) developed a style referred to as 'baggy'. You would have your flared jeans and either a band t-shirt or a Joe Bloggs top to be right on top of things fashion wise. They were a band that also united fans of rock music and dance music, which is an incredibly tight balancing act to pull off. It is still the most played album I have in my collection and one of only 3 that I always, and I mean always, play from start through to the finish (The Bends by Radiohead and Funeral by Arcade Fire are the others since you ask). The bass build up to the start of I Wanna be Adored through to the quite frankly mental instrumental at the end of I am the Resurrection just have to be listened to all the way through.
Years and legal wrangles later and eventually we got a second album but I didn't get to see them then either and pretty soon after they split up. Missed my chance, and with the way they were reportedly talking about each other, it looked like that chance was gone for good.
Last year though they reformed and were doing gigs in Heaton Park in Manchester. I was gutted. There was no way I could get to that so I watched as my friends from school and my grown up friends all trooped down and had the most amazing nostalgic experience. Then they announced they were taking it round the country and one of the gigs was to be a reprise of their 1990 Glasgow Green event. This time I was lucky enough thanks to a friend who was lucky enough to get through to the ticket line. I could manage that in the wheelchair and with an oxygen cylinder no problem.
I'm not so naive as to not realise that this comeback is probably mostly for the sake of money but this band were such an integral part of my youth that I simply don't care. The fact Primal Scream were one of the support acts just made it all the better as their album Screamadelica was another 'must have' back then.
Saturday was quite simply breathtaking. It was everything I hoped for and more and considering I was stone cold sober for it I have perfect recall of it all. It would be churlish to sit and pick through the set list because it is truly amazing that for a band to have only two albums from two decades ago to sound as fresh as they ever did and barely have a lull in their set. It was just relentless genius from incredibly talented musicians.
One slight grievance was missing out on a chance to speak to an old school friend who spotted me getting wheeled in but she was in the queue for the ladies toilets which were 20 people deep so I completely understand her wanting to protect her position at the front of the queue.
On the topic of me getting wheeled about I have now simply given in with regard to being huffy about it. I'll let anyone push me now without getting all precious and will even smile back at the patronising smiles that come my way from well intentioned but still patronising individuals. So Tim and Claire, my friends for this adventure, took turns pushing. Tim was the much better driver - you need a certain authority to barge your way through a crowd and Claire is quite simply too tentative for that sort of thing. We got to our raised stage with the other 'differently abled' folks and as only one helper is allowed in Claire came in with me and Tim perched himself on the other side of the barrier in front of us and Claire could go and talk to him from time to time. He was making plenty of friends anyway, not least from people offering to sell drugs to him. On the topic of drugs I took plenty pain killers and diazepam to relax my muscles as the chair isn't designed for sitting in for that amount of time so I went well prepared.
As I said the set list was tremendous with probably the best start to any gig I've ever been to. Lead singer Ian Brown, referencing the first Glasgow Green gig commented about having been here before and then the band launched into I Wanna be Adored. That was it, we were off.
The conclusion with the full (and then some) I am the Resurrection was almost like a religious experience for me and then the band came to the front of the stage declaring that the gig was 'The best band in the world in the 2nd best city in the world'. High praise indeed from these proud Mancunians. When I hear that sort of thing at gigs I always wonder how sincere it is and whether they say that sort of thing every night regardless of where they are but something about it rang true. The bassist who said it played for Primal Scream in between stints with the Stone Roses so I believe him sincerely and even Ian Brown who famously doesn't say much on stage was positively chatty between songs. They were clearly an act at the top of their game and really enjoying themselves with it.
Now what happened after the gig was going directly from the sublime to the ridiculous. Two taxi companies accepted our booking and then just plain didn't turn up despite being informed that I was in a wheelchair and with an oxygen cylinder rapidly depleting. So Tim and Claire took turns in pushing me up to the Royal Infirmary (all uphill) where they had oxygen for me if mine were to run out but our third attempt at a taxi (a Cumbernauld firm) came within 25 minutes and I got home on the very last fumes from the oxygen cylinder. Tragedy averted, but only by the heroic efforts of two friends. I had been out for 8 hours and was dead on my feet.
I have since slept for nearly all of Sunday and large portions of Monday and Tuesday due to the overwhelming fatigue from the effort of going out for that long so I've decided that, while I'll still go out from time to time, it won't be to anything as grand as that until I get my new breathing gear sorted. It was a hell of show to bow out on.
