In this month's UNCUT, our writers, friends and favourite musicians reminisce about their favourite gigs. The October issue, onsale now, features our best 50 - including Jimi, U2, The Band and Oasis - with rare photos from the shows too. Now here’s some more – we'll publish one everyday this...
In this month’s UNCUT, our writers, friends and favourite musicians reminisce about their favourite gigs.
The October issue, onsale now, features our best 50 – including Jimi, U2, The Band and Oasis – with rare photos from the shows too.
Now here’s some more – we’ll publish one everyday this month – including online exclusives on gigs by Stone Roses, Pixies and the Beach Boys, and Stereophonics’ Kelly Jones and Babyshambles’ Adam Ficek‘s favourite live memories too.
plus WERE YOU THERE?
Not even UNCUT’s war-weary gig-hounds have been to every great show in history – but you lot probably have.
Email Allan_Jones@ipcmedia.com, or share your memories in the comments box below, of the ones we might have missed, and we’ll publish the best in a future issue!
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THE STONE ROSES
Dingwalls, London
May 1989
PAUL MOODY:
Hard to imagine now, with lippy guitar bands cluttering the Top Five, but prior to the arrival of The Stone Roses in 1989, indie-rock was going through its equivalent of the Dark Ages. Overnight, scratchy guitars, black jeans and a curious provincial fondness for America were out and gobby frontmen, Joe Bloggs clobber and and a love of shaggy, psychedelic pop were in. Not that I had any inkling of this seismic cultural shift as I arrived at Dingwalls one balmy evening in Spring 1989.
If the size of the queue snaking it’s way down Camden High Street was a shock- the result of a tumultuous gig at the ICA the previous week- the mood was a revelation. Good-natured, colourfully dressed and, judging by the sweet-smoke on the breeze- partial to a puff, this was a new breed of gig-goer, untainted by the post-Smiths gloom still engulfing the pages of the music press.
I’d known about flare-wearing scallies since hazardous Spurs away trips to Liverpool in ’84, but this was different. Here, possession of a ‘Lazyitus’ t-shirt and a smile really were all you needed to get high. Consequently, when the ‘Sold Out’ signs went up an hour later, no one grumbled or caused a fuss. Instead, in best rave tradition, we congregated by the outside wall nearest the stage, and listened in to a crystal clear recital of that classic, ten song set out in the courtyard: “She Bangs the Drums”, “Standing Here”, “Waterfall”, “Elephant Stone”, “Sally Cinnamon”, “Made Of Stone”, “I Wanna Be Adored”, “Where Angels Play”, “Shoot You Down”, “I Am The Resurrection”.
The nineties had started.
