The Stone Roses - 'The DVD' (Silvertone)
4/5
By: Toby L
Didn't you hear? It's cool to like The Stone Roses again. They're, like, legendary, or something. And what with the likes of The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand and Busted leading the lights of all that's pristine in modern-music of the '00s, it's never been more in to like Brit-bands than now.
So the blurb will go in the music tabloids. But what with Ian Brown again playing classic Roses songs at concerts, in an attempt to hit back at fellow ex-member John Squire's decision to ransack their mutual, classic band's repertoire to fill up set-lists in his own solo-jaunts, it seems just timing for a re-evaluation of the late-80s phenomenon.
'Phenomenon', because the UK's romance with Manc's stoner-funk-indie foursome could never have been long-lived. For one, they ran out of material. Despite rehearsing for years prior to ever even releasing a record or gigging, 'The Stone Roses' is essentially the sole left-over we have of a legacy that was untraceably massive, yet so sustained that - like a nuclear-bomb - it came, went, conquered, and then dispersed, everyone afterwards left wondering what the f**k had happened.
Then, the mid-90s. The Stone Roses 'returned'. 'Mightily'. Their 'Second Coming' was one of the most inappropriately titled comebacks of all-time. Songs were dirge-ridden, uninspired and a conceited stab at recreating the magic that lined their eponymous LP. It came to a crux during '95 at a frankly devastating headline performance at Reading; Brown brought 'flat vocals' to a new crushing low, while Squire's tedious, beyond-five-minute guitar-solos were more bloated than Rik Waller on Viagra. It was over.
Since then, we've been fortunate - Brown and Squire's solo endeavours have been rewarding, talented reinventions, the former as the quintessential, dubby, off-dance maestro, the latter as the earnest, bourbon-swilling, gravel-throated singer/songwriter-type.
But packages such as 'The Stone Roses - The DVD' shamelessly remind us where it all went right previously, and how the pair's relationship alongside one another truly made for classic fare. On DVD1, we get their iconic Blackpool performance - from the elevating entrance of 'I Wanna Be Adored', through to a meaty 'I Am The Resurrection', and a whole washing of videos - best of all is the cheesily split-screen 'Waterfall', which still stands up - enticingly - to this very day, much like their staple 'Fool's Gold' (not featured in the pre-empting concert-footage; Squire famously thought the track was just 'too funky' for exerting on a hungry audience, the nutter).
DVD2 is the real gold for fans, though - live-renditions of material from Manchester's perennial Hacienda venue (inclusive of a ravishing 'Sugar Spun Sister'), a version of 'Made Of Stone' from 'The Late Show', and not-so-revealing, yet at least mildly insightful, behind-the-scenes home-video footage of the band in the early days.
All slightly fey, with few bombshells, 'The Stone Roses - The DVD' survives from being an unnecessary cash-in through vision of the fact that all this hasn't previously been available on the format. A vital band in vital musical climes; the relevance will never falter.
Artists in this article: The Stone Roses
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