Venue:
Sydney Opera House
Date: 13/12/2016
I experienced something new last night. As soon as the band walked out on stage, everyone stood up, and stayed standing for the rest of the gig. Aus audiences are not known for standing up at gigs unless they have to (well Sydney audiences at least). I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard from behind, “sit down I can’t see, I didn’t pay to see your back”, when my wife and I have stood up. It’s a rock gig for christ’s sake, not a chamber orchestra.
Anyway, as for the Roses, they played a blinder. If you watched a video without the sound you’d struggle to wonder why. There’s a few swirly lights, Mani stands stock-still in front of his rig, Squire wanders up to the drum riser occasionally for a nod and wink with Reni, and Ian Brown meanders around the stage at a leisurely pace, occasionally cutting a slothful rug and waving one of many maracas at the audience. But it’s the music that does it. The opening snare of Resurrection, ‘that bass line’ in Fools Gold, the opening chimes of Waterfall, or 2500 people singing along very loudly to This is the One. In fact 2500 people singling along to every single song very loudly. And speaking of singing, well you can’t review a Roses gig without mentioning Brown’s voice. He was flat as a fancy French crepe, but he sounded great.
They played for just over 90 minutes, straight through, no encores. Well what else would they play? They’d covered everything already. All of the first album, three from the much-maligned but actually not that bad Second Coming, and all the non-album stuff you want to hear. Of the two new tracks I would have preferred Beautiful Thing, but All For One kind of fitted the night and sounds better live than on Youtube.
On our way home we saw the hoards going home from the Coldplay gig. I can’t imagine they had nearly as much fun as us.
The audience:
98.3 % English.
It made me think..
They could keep playing this set for years to come and no one would think any less of them. It’s got everything you need, a groove to dance to and the opportunity to sing along very loudly, safe in the knowledge that you’re probably still more in tune than the singer.
Although, some more new stuff would be nice.
`The Stone Roses` IMHO is the greatest debut album ever and I bought my first LP in 1962, `Bob Dylan` if you ask. When I first heard it, well it was the singles from it I heard first on the radio and it was always “who is that” to the nearest person. I got the album on CD, who didn`t in 1989? Sat down at home for the first play around 3pm, stopped playing it 8 hours later. It was 1966 with dance music. Truly beautiful.
Then `The Second Coming`, oh dear! The critics, they didn`t like it did they? I f%@kin` did, a cross between Led Zep and Simon & Garfunkel with dance music.
Those new songs are shite IMHO but that was a good reveiw @simon22367, I was unaware they were touring but I would not be going anyhow. With the STs it`s the music for me but I doubt they will ever match `SC` let alone the brilliance of the debut of the debut.
Agree re the debut – a wonderful, magical album, that some people don’t get and that really is their loss. The second album was just ok to me. Nothing special. But I quite like recent song Beautiful Thing. Better than anything on that second album, I reckon. And as for seeing them live now – as someone who hates concerts, they’re probably the only band I’d be interested in seeing. This clip from the reunion tour is one of my favourite things on the whole of the internet: