Date: Fri, 26 Jul 96 18:57:27 -0700
From: Neil <niftyneil@*********.co.uk>
To:
Subject: Roses at Reading

The main stage at 10.10PM at Reading 96 saw the Stone Roses play a Blinder. The third coming to many saw the advent of a new day, a new guitairist and new material. With the lyrics of Underworld's Born Slippy boom over the tannoy as they played the NME stage still pounding our heads we eagerlly awaited the Roses who were "fashionably late."--If I wanted to hear Underworld I would have gone to see them was my attitude but the wait was worthwhile as the lights dimmed at a screeching guitar pierced the smokey stage......They had arrived.With a set of old tracks and new tracks equally balanced the hardcore fans were encapsulated by the charm of the new guitairist--formally Simply Red and and presently amazing. As a guitairst myself I was captivated by the playing which had so much John Squire but still individual and certainly unique--the one handed playing and wah wah was tremendous as I thought this man is a guitar god!!The new material was original and tinged with powerful playing from three musicians who play individually but work together with power and a purpose. The bad news is I managed to convince about 7 or 8 friends to see the Roses after "Underworld" and they screamed abuse at me and said the Roses were terrible- Mainly complaing about Ian Brown's singing which they claim was "out of tune" If he was the atmosphere and power of the rest of the band covered for him. As those who I was with who knew the Roses were equally impressed and exhilerated by the show. Brown did have an attitude last night which I can only presume was copied by Liam GAllagher of Oasis as Brown strut around the stage and shouted at a guy in the crowd with a Unon Jack flag "get rid of that flag--I don't want to see it" The first time it was offensive the second was rude!!!The gig verall was amazing- amazing lights, amazing atmosphere, amazing musicianship and amazing songs. Love Spreads and Breaking into heaven gave me inspration that there is still the Stone Roses after John Squire.

Neil Park
Watford, 

From: karl <karl@******.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.music.stone-roses
Subject: Reading news ...

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 15:00:12 GMT

Hi everyone,Sorry for not writing sooner but I only managed to get to bed at 8.30 this morning and I needed a bit of sleep!First of all the band (without Reni and John) played REALLY well! Everyone looked really happy and glad to be there. The crowd all seemed to be behind them.Aziz played some songs, particularly the ones from Second Coming almost note for note .. some songs he played slightly differently but they still sounded great. He ISN'T a replacement for John, to me nobody could replace him, Aziz is himself and he's a great guitarist. Ian introduced him with, "This is Aziz, he's here because he wanted to be here". To be able to perform so well when so much pressure was on him, speaks volumes.The keyboards also seemed to be more in evidence than when I've seen them before and this brought a new dimension to some songs.There was a dancer .. not Cressa though.Two new songs were played. I don't know the titles but I'll guess: "High Time" and "I Suppose". They both sounded good although I need to hear them again to get into them ... The set comprised of songs from The Stone Roses and Second Coming."I Am The Ressurrection" WASN'T the encore, it was played mid-set!! An encore of one song, "Driving South" was played.Everyone seemed really happy after their performance and I think that they've proved that they aren't finished by any means ..... this is just a new chapter. Now we wait for John ..

From: RitchieLog@*****.com
Subject: Stone Roses at Reading - eyewitness account!
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 21:57:43 -0400
To: roses-list@lists.best.com

Jeez,Its now more than 24 hours since they came off stage and I've driven best part of 400 miles to get home. I thought the list and newsgroup would have been jumping by now... but they're not. I'll try to give as much of a review as I can be bothered to type tonight.Eric's forward started off well - They came on as predicted at 10.15. Lots of smoke and Born Slippy belting out. The first thing to hear was Aziz playing some seriously Squire'esque licks. For the guitarists reading this he had exactly the same kit as Squire - a Les Paul Gold Top, 2 Fender Twins and a couple of Marshall stacks (plus the usual chorussey effects and wah).Aziz solo'd away for a couple of minutes. First thing I thought was "Jesus the guy can really do this." After reading the Spain reviews I had my doubts, but he really could. Ian paraded about as usual. Set then started properly with Adored. Ian's vocals were characteristically bollocks. Aziz didn't seem to be able to put the same feeling in the song as Squire did.Exactly the same scenario for the next song (She Bangs). It didn't feel quite right. (One really irritating thing here - Nigel on keyboards pipes up for everyone to clap along. Thank fuck no-one did. Nigel's trying to do backing vocals but they're not really working. I'm beginning to get worried that The Roses are finished.Next was Waterfall. A bit of a turning point here - Ian's singing came together all of a sudden. Aziz played this really well. Again for the guitarists he didn't bother to capo at the fourth - fuck knows how he played it.I was expecting the same set as Spain and the next song to be Ten Storey. Sure enough Aziz changed to a 335. He started to play something different. Shit.... a new song. It sounded much closer to first album stuff than Second Coming, although there was a very Squirey solo in the middle. Aziz seemed much more comfortable playing this. We guessed the title to be "High Time". It reminded me **a little** of Hardest Thing In The World.Next was Ten Storey. Again, Aziz was very very good. Biggest surprise here was the arrival of a dancer. I had expected this as someone wrote of her in Spain. Ian said something to her when she came on just before they started. She looked a bit pissed off about this and went to the side. They started playing and then she started dancing. Complete bollocks. Cressa was there for a reason. She just arsed about on stage. I'll not mention her again, but she was there till the end of the set looking really stupid. Musically everything was beginning to come together. Aziz was really fukn GOOD.Lets just say the rest of the set continued on similar vein.(ie ranging from good to mindblowing) Aziz played the first album stuff OK and the Second Coming stuff superbly. Ian's voice settled - it was the best I've heard him. (This was my 5th live Roses experience.) Mani was really really tight the whole way through, and Robbie did his best, which isn't Reni but works OK. They should ditch the keyboards. The highlight was definitely Breaking Into Heaven. IMHO Aziz played it better than John. I reckon he's a better guitarist technically. Some of the stuff he was doing was really really wild, but it fitted.... really well. He did these amazing harmonics, and I think I saw hammer ons and offs with left hand while stretching the strings with right.I'll try to remember the rest of the set (apologies for omissions and mistakes in the order- please correct me if you were there!!)Adored, She Bangs, Waterfall, New Song #1 (High Time maybe), Ten Storey, Daybreak, Made Of Stone, Love Spreads, New Song #2 (No guess at title, see eric's fwd.) Resurrection, Breaking Into Heaven. Driving South was encore.The other new song sounded more similar to their earlier stuff than to Second Coming stuff. (Is this because they were co-written by Ian, or is this because Squire wrote them before he left and this was his latest direction???)Its been well said on the list that they haven't settled on Aziz as full time replacement yet. If they really do mean to go on as the Roses, he can do the job. Its still well worth going to see them. They haven't died with the loss of John. I agree with everything said in the previous posts about the gig. Aziz played a lot of Squire's tricky stuff really well. The most impressive songs were the ones where a bit of his individuality shone through. He struggled most on the ones where there was more feeling required than expertise.Right, I can't be bothered typing anymore. If I remember anything else I'll follow up later on.It was well worth the 800 mile round trip and the 32 quid ticket price!

Cheers Ritchie

From: garyb@*****.igs.net
Subject: Reading
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 07:09:42 +0000
To: roses-list@lists.best.com

English journalist Graham Bell just reported (Wednesday) on CFNY (Toronto radio) that -"The Stone Roses were the highlight of Sunday night. Ian Brown was really out of key, but you could hardly hear him unless you were near the front of the stage. But the band had a real groove to them. A friend of mine interviewed the band a short while ago and they said that John Squire was just a front."Just thought you should know.

Take Care, Chris