When I met John Squire at the opening of one of his


recent art exhibitions, I had


already met him briefly earlier in the year, so there wasn’t that thing of meeting him for the first time. Also, I was with someone who wasn’t so bothered, so that helped. But it was actually all quite ordinary. But I did still get the impression that I was meeting quite an extraordinary person.


I sensed that he


was trying to get me to talk to him quite naturally, which was nice of him, so when I said it was an honour, it actually sounded a little trite, even though this was how I felt.


I mean, let’s face it, worshipping popstars, of whatever type, be it boy bands or death metal bands, is a pretty childish thing to do. I don’t really feel the excitement as I might have done when I was younger when I go to watch a band I like. And yet, once I’m there, after a couple of drinks, I do still get the urge to behave in the way a much younger fan might, such as crowd-surfing at recent Primal Scream and My Bloody Valentine gigs. I mean, really – what was I thinking?!


But there can be few bands The Beatles who really captured


since the


imaginations and inspired idolatry in the way that The Stone Roses did. After all, the first song on their first album was called “I Wanna Be Adored”. And whether you interpret that as the way Ian Brown and the rest of the band members themselves felt, or the way that their fans then felt about


themselves, it’s a song that is so filled with positive energy, & definitely lends itself to encouraging worship.


And it wasn’t just the music the fans loved. It was the attitude, the clothes, the V signs to the establishment. Some might say it had all been done before, but if you were a teenager, as I was, The Stone Roses were exactly what you needed. I remember on one no-uniform day in school, myself and two other boys in the class (including fellow contributor to this magazine, Chris White) all wore Stone Roses t-shirts and flares. The flares I wore were actually an old pair of my dad’s, rather than the fashionable, baggy Joe Bloggs jeans, which I was mocked a bit for, but I really didn’t care.


And so it was that, around 5 or so years later, Ian Brown would wear my Cardiff City shirt on stage at a Stone Roses gig in Newport. This event has been talked about a lot, mainly for the fighting after the gig, as documented in the Soul Crew book amongst other places.


According to Mani in an interview with a fanzine shortly afterwards:


“This bag fat Welsh valley boy, a big fat smelly greasy man he was, I saw him take his Cardiff away shirt off and he threw it on stage.”


Thanks for the compliment, Mani, but I think I should finally give my side of the story..


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