The first time I saw the Stone Roses was on a Granada TV show called The Other Side of Midnight. They were introduced by Factory Records boss Tony Wilson, in typically Tony Wilson style.
“A Manchester group whose rock ‘n’ roll stance I have seriously disliked for four or five or six years,” he began. “Never had any time for the group. And then a couple of months ago a drummer called Ringo Star – the other one – made me listen to a single which I absolutely loved. It turned out to be them. The Stone Roses. Eighty-nine begins then with a complete admission of error on my part. Big apologies and here’s the new one from the excellent Stone Roses…”
This was January 1989. I was 17, living in Manchester… and as I finally laid eyes on the four young men every switched-on kid in the sixth form had been promising were going to be the greatest band alive, suddenly the world opened up, blossomed like a flower. It’s a cliché to say a band changed your life… but those four minutes on The Other Side of Midnight changed my life.
That performance still looks special. Google it. Turn the volume up. Drink it in. It’s a snapshot of a band on the edge of greatness (the debut album would be released four months later) – but crucially, it’s also a snapshot of a band that, despite having only released a couple of singles to that point, knew they were going to be huge. There’s a supreme confidence in their own impending significance. It’s magnetic. You can’t look away.
Ian had the swagger, John had the insouciant cool, Reni had the vibe, the rhythm. But Mani… Mani was the one you wanted to be mates with.
In those months between Tony Wilson’s “complete admission of error” and the release of the album that would go on to be (regularly) voted the greatest debut LP of all time, the Stone Roses became Manchester’s best-kept/worst-kept secret. You know a band means something more than their music when people start imitating their look… and in the spring of ‘89 the city was suddenly full of kids in oversized t-shirts, bucket hats and flares. For a little while, nobody outside the North understood why. For a little while the Stone Roses felt like our beautiful secret, the greatest band in the world that only we knew about. Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive… But to be young was very heaven.
The Stone Roses would end messily and then reform jubilantly (and then end messily again) and in the meantime Ian launched a solo career, John returned to painting, Reni all-but retired from music, and Mani joined Primal Scream, where his thrillingly dynamic bass style and infectious personality brought a new vitality (and much-needed likeability) to that band.
I interviewed Ian a couple times, once for a Mancunian arts magazine and once for a national newspaper; I interviewed John for the relaunched Q magazine… but I never got to meet Mani. The only one of those three I don’t feel I’d have been intimidated by. The only one I think would have been a proper laugh. The only one who, even 36 years after first laying eyes on him, I still wanted to be mates with. (Reni doesn’t do interviews, so we’ll leave him aside.)
Last night the news broke that Mani had died suddenly, aged 63. This morning on BBC 6 Music they played that debut album in its entirety.
And for the first time since January 1989, hearing those songs didn’t make me want to shout for joy; they also made me want to cry.