Watch rare footage of The Stone Roses at Spike Island
On May 27th, 1990, Spike Island was the only place to be as The Stone Roses cemented their legacy with a historic performance in front of 27,000 adoring fans. If they had chosen a bigger outdoor venue twice the capacity, The Roses would have also sold that out easily.
Following the success of their eponymous debut in 1989, which redefined culture, The Stone Roses had the world in their hands. They needed to celebrate the record in style and began scouting venues in January 1990 before deciding upon Spike Island. Huge outdoor shows in the summer have now become the norm, and The Stone Roses played a crucial role in making this happen.
Unfortunately, unlike other historical shows, such as Oasis at Knebworth, there is no official recording of the concert. A camera crew were set to document the performance, but The Stone Roses had second thoughts at the last minute after growing fears about the show due to organisational problems on the promoter’s behalf.
Frontman Ian Brown explained in 2010 to NME: “The organisation was shambolic. The PA wasn’t big enough for a start, and certain things were going on that we didn’t know about. The management were taking people’s sandwiches off them at the gate to force them to buy five-quid burgers when they got in. Some kid got impaled. He broke out of jail, tried to jump the railings and ended up leaving his bollocks on top of them. We were still finding out about this stuff two, three years later.”
Mani told the same publication: “Our management really fucked up. There were security guards taking booze off people, there was a lot of overcharging for food and drink, and there weren’t enough facilities onsite. There were a lot of aspects of Spike Island that were really badly thought out, but none of that is the band’s job.”
Understandably, The Stone Roses decided against having a camera crew film the concert because they felt it would be a disaster, which was partly true. However, the technical glitches didn’t matter to most audience members, who were thrilled as soon as the pounding drums of ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ were kicked in by Reni.
If the gig had occurred in 2022, everybody would be filming it on their iPhones, and even if you weren’t lucky enough to be in attendance, you could watch the concert online. However, in 1990, nobody had portable recording devices to archive the historic show.
Surprisingly, a few years ago, footage appeared out of nowhere on YouTube, which not only captured The Stone Roses on-stage at Spike Island and featured them in soundcheck beforehand. Remarkably, this video is yet to be taken down from the video platform, so watch it while you still have a chance and transport yourself back to 1990.
