Breaking Into Heaven: The Rise And Fall Of The Stone Roses by Middles Mick

Author:Middles, Mick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Essential Works
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

20Due mainly to Mike Pickering’s constant forays across the Atlantic, where he would seek out new dance sounds to bring back home.

21Ironically, despite the fact that New Order were part-owners of The Hacienda, free beer was simply not available to them in their own club.

22Gregory Isaacs once remarked that International Two reminded him of Trenchtown, Jamaica.

10

THE BIG GIGS

On July 29, 1989, The Stone Roses performed at Blackpool’s Empress Ballroom, the first of their three defining gigs (Alexandra Palace and Spike Island being the other two rather perverse venues), and latterly celebrated as something of a coup for Gareth Evans. The venue, being as far from sophisticated London as it is possible to travel, culturally speaking if not geographically, served only to highlight the maverick status of the band, not to mention the manager.

There is no doubt that the idea came straight out of Evans’ feverish mind, although originally, his notion had been somewhat more ambitious. Blackpool was to be one of a string of dates beaded around the edges of the country. Gareth Evans wanted The Stone Roses to perform a full tour in decaying British holiday resorts.

Evans: “There is something very romantic about British seaside resorts. Something timeless too. They are either beyond fashion or stuck back in the Fifties, depending on your point of view. But they are also very unpretentious and I thought that would suit the Roses’ stance, which was very street level at that point.”

The idea was talked up with promoter Phil Jones, an intelligent, London-based motormouth who was fanatical about his music and was then working for JLP concerts in London. The Evans/Jones connection is important – it stemmed back to the time when Jones would pump an endless stream of quality acts into the two Internationals, and would climax with the Roses’ legendary Spike Island gig. Jones was given the task of setting up the seaside tour and, inspired by Evans’ rather eccentric plan, set about contacting crumbling pastel-painted variety halls in Southend, Torquay, Bridlington and Skegness. Gauging suitable capacities was tricky, for nobody really knew quite how big The Stone Roses were. Secondly, convincing venue owners who were generally hot for Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown or the Hinge & Brackett Revue, that The Stone Roses would be a lucrative, trouble-free event, wasn’t easy. But it wasn’t impossible, either. Incredibly, Jones managed to set up the full seaside tour. It was hard work, fraught with bureaucratic complexity but Jones’ persistence paid off. Indeed, the Lees Cliff Hall in Southend had actually started to sell tickets.

It was probably fortunate, therefore, that Jones placed a call to Evans about unrelated International business, only to have the manager casually inform him that, “We don’t want to do that seaside thing anymore. We’d just like to play one of them, at a venue where nobody has ever played before. Can you sort it?” Jones, irritated and back-peddling furiously, managed to pull The Stone Roses from the tour in the nick of time (one day later and Britain’s seaside

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