Story

I have loved the Stone Roses ever since my school years when they first came onto the scene. I never thought I’d see Ian tour Australia, so I was really excited about this one and I had a feeling it might be easy to get to Ian as his following in Australia is no where near as big as places like the UK. I went to the venue on the afternoon of Ian’s gig in April 2008. and when I got there the stage door was open and I could hear Ian and his band inside rehearsing, It was great listening to them. I was the only one there and eventually two other fans arrived and we all listened to the rehearsal. We decided collectively to just walk in through the stage door and see what happens, there were no security anywhere. So in we go………..
Before we knew it we were in the venue watching the rehearsal from the seating area. Ian noticed us and did nothing but kept on singing, it was unreal. As he finished, he picked up his plastic shopping bag of contents and walked off stage, as he passed close by us we called his name and he came over to us. Wow! I showed him my painting and he loved it, I offered it to him, he was very happy to take it and said he’d sign my other one for me, as he did he kept telling me to sell it, it was so funny, “Sell it man, make yourself some money “ he said as he wrote on the painting, I was laughing telling him I want to keep it. I’ve never heard anyone I’ve met tell me to sell it, it’s always the opposite.
He asked me if I was going to the show, and I told him I didn’t have a ticket, to which he said he will put me on his guest list and asked how many people I wanted to bring, it was amazing. I ended up taking 3 other people – 2 of them the fans who waited with me for Ian. As for the real show itself, it was fantastic, one of my favourite gigs, and funnily enough though we were in Sydney, Australia the gig was full of English fans who sang every line of every song almost draining out Ian’s voice completely, an incredible night.