The Stone Roses have been unduly surreptitious in announcing their 2016 reunion gigs. Across Manchester a mob of posters showing lemon cross-sections turned up this week, and number-savvy fans correctly counted 16 of them, sufficient evidence for the Third Coming.
Essentially, it’s the same news as the last reunion. A handful of massive shows announced, a new album elusively suggested, with technical problems and/or band difficulties likely to occur. What should be different about this outing? At the very least they pulled together their own touring company, registering Man Touring Limited a few days before the lemons showed up.
This might be because The Stone Roses were haunted by managerial incompetence for years until their demise. Even their 1990 Spike Island gig was strewn with organisational shortfalls. The bookers allegedly brought the wrong opening act, and many gurning fans were repeatedly startled by helicopters landing – almost to the point of stampede.
It makes sense then that they want better, wiser management for the next coming, but unfortunately they’re already doing it wrong. Apart from their two hometown shows, they’ve announced T in the Park – the only festival in England to have been seriously threatened with cancellation from the presence of some quietly nesting birds last year.
Given that it’s a reunion tour, there’s a strong possibility of the shows being lifeless and glib, with Ian Brown and Co now looking considerably more like tired sock puppets than before, but perhaps so do the original generation of fans, and that’s part of the appeal.
