The Stone Roses (07/07/2012)

I sat through Jessie J to get a good spot for Noel Gallagher and the Stone Roses. Luckily enough, everyone at the front left after Jessie J, probably off to see some hip hop dude with a set of decks, but the fans of the Manchester music scene stayed for the most glorious night of their lives.

With my friend Kirsty I managed to get on the second row. Being as small as I am all weekend I was employed to push through the crowds so that we could get a good spot, a job that I excelled at during Saturday night. We waited fifty minutes whilst the likes of the La's, the Beatles, and Oasis were getting played to us on the speakers, each of us eagerly waiting for the Stone Roses. Then the song genre switched, suddenly a woman's vocal entered the speakers, every member of the audience looked up to hear this woman sing the line "The Stone Roses" and at the instance everyone began cheering as this ghostly tune carried on.

Mani, Ian Brown, Reni and John Squire entered the stage as the loudest cheer I have ever heard lit up the whole of Scotland. There stands Ian Brown with his bells as his band begin 'I wanna be adored' behind him, Mani quietly nods along with his bass, Squire has a face of utter concentration - almost as if he doesn't want to let one note slip, and for the whole show he never missed a single note or did anything wrong in the slightest. Reni, with his ripped up cloth tied around his head, fluently patters his sticks onto his drum set, I was a little angry at this point because Reni didn't have his fisherman hat on - but I screamed amazingly loud when he stuck it on. And then there's Brown, he stands like a God as he echoes the words "I don't have to sell my soul, he's already in me", and there was not one person in that audience who didn't get shivers during that performance. 

Any Roses fan will have fallen in love with the setlist. I never realised how great the Stone Roses were until I had seen them, obviously I knew how they are a great band and I've always known this but live? They take your breath away. At first I was unable to put their electric performance into words, and I'm still struggling, but let me tell you now; it is the best gig I have ever witnessed in all my life. What I love in a band is when they are all as strong, musically, as each other and it's easy to see why, in their press conference, Brown mentioned the phenomenon of how well they all play together. 

During 'This is the one' everyone chanted "this is the one" as soon as that guitar riff began. I was a little sad to see the Brown wasn't doing his trademark dance move, so I decided to do it for myself. But what a performance this was, easily their best moment of the gig. 

Throughout the whole gig Brown was here, there, and everywhere, he often came over to our side of the stage - even waving at us at one point. He'd stand right on the edge of the stage shaking his bells and every person on our side cheered at their hero, but for me this gig was made by Squire. I've never seen such a great live guitarist before, I'd never known what's been meant as an amazing performance until I'd seen Squire.

The Stone Roses are easily the best performers at T in the park, they just about managed to beat Kasabian, for me. I would just love to relive this night over and over again, words cannot explain their performance. 

I've also come back from T with a huge crush on Reni. 

Well done Sam.