Fans had good reason to believe The Stone Roses’ 5-year-long reunion ended with their June 24, 2017, concert in Glasgow, yet there was never any formal announcement — until now. John Squire, in a new interview with The Guardian, makes it clear: The Roses are once again no more.
Squire, the band’s guitarist, makes the revelation in an interview about his upcoming art show. He’s clearly reluctant to talk about the Roses, but does acknowledge the band’s end followed that Glasgow gig:
Is that really it for the Roses? “Yeah,” he says.
How is it with Ian [Brown]? They had a pact when they reformed not to talk about all that, he says. “And I’m going to honour that.”
Will he be coming to the opening of the show? “No.”
Is he invited? “No.”
Is anyone? “I invited Mani [bassist Gary Mounfield], I don’t know if he’s coming.”
At that Glasgow gig, the Roses played a 19-song set, focusing heavily on their 1989 self-titled debut, with early single “Sally Cinnamon,” some choice B-sides, a few Second Coming tracks and 2016 single “All For One” filling out the rest of the set.
The set, as is customary, closed with “I Am the Resurrection,” after which there was much hugging among the band members, followed by Brown singing, “Hear me, it’s a beautiful thing that I say bye bye” from the Roses’ other 2016 single, “Beautiful Thing,” which the full band has never performed live.
At some point Brown said, “Don’t be sad it’s over. Be happy that it happened,” which led numerous fans to tweet the quote, concluding Brown had just announced the end of the Roses.
The band, which fell apart in the 1996 following the departures of Squire and drummer Reni, shocked the music world with its announcement in 2011 that it would reunite the following year. In the ensuing years, the band played sporadic concerts, with just a handful in the U.S. — an ill-fated Coachella headlining slot, and a more well-received Madison Square Garden gig.
The Roses signed a new recording contract before the reunion shows even began, but the rumored album never materialized and the group only released the two singles. The band never even removed its final string of tour dates from its website following that last Glasgow show.
Read the full interview with Squire at theguardian.com.
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My all time favorite band. But as much as I love them, I also hate them. How F–n hard is it to just get your shit together and play music? Fans like me have stuck with this band for decades, and they repay that loyalty with this? Jesus!
Guess this would be “The Second Going.”
Hey, don’t kid yourself that they owe the fans anything at all. It’s frustrating that they didn’t record more down the years as at their best they were an untouchable unit with a fluidity to their playing that other bands can only dream of. That said, if All For One and Beautiful Thing are anything to go by, the magic deserted them a long time ago. As a wise man once said, you can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way.