City: London, England
Date: 18th November 1989
Running Time (Approx): 70 mins
Tracklist:
- Intro
- She Bangs The Drums
- Standing Here
- Where Angels Play
- Shoot You Down
- Elephant Stone
- Waterfall
- Sugar Spun Sister
- Made Of Stone
- Going Down
- Sally Cinnamon
- I Wanna Be Adored
- I Am The Resurrection
- Fools Gold
Sound Quality: B
A slight layer of noise, but the recording is decent, and there’s no distortion, but the mix sounds quite.. hollow. The last three songs are in really good quality.
Performance Quality: B
A good performance, which was forgotten because of the poor sound at the gig. Although the are some mistakes, Ian sings in tune most of the time, and Reni plays some of his funkiest stuff during the IATR and Fools Gold medley at the end, using bongos on his kit to good effect. Squire’s guitar is on top form, assisted well by Mani, apart from his mistake on IATR. The last two songs contain some of the best live stuff the Roses ever did.
Why should I get this bootleg?
Because this was one of the Roses’s great gigs, and was also a good performance. Contains Ian Brown’s famous “It’s not where you’re from…” speech too, after the crowd continually chant “Manchester, la-la-la, Manchester, la-la-la”.
Background
This was the second of the Roses’ big gigs, after Blackpool. Unfortunately, they used a mate of theirs to set up the sound system. During the soundcheck it sounded ok, but when the crowd came in it completely changed the acoustics of the grand hall, leaving the sound in a complete mess. The engineers worked hard to improve the sound, and did, but even at it’s best it was just about adequate.
Ian Brown later said in 1998 that he and John left in a car after the gig and didn’t say a word all the way home – they were too disappointed in it. Still, it was another event, and about 7,000 people saw it, the Roses first major gig in the south of England.
Fan Reviews
“The sound is, as you say, not the best, but the IATR/Fools Gold merge at the end is superb and makes it well worth having.” – Craig Elder, Scotland
“Fools Gold is as funky as the devil himself! It’s a bit of a letdown when Ian starts singing in the wrong key, but still…” – Alan Parkinson, England
Ian brown singing out of key. No way. Heaton Park was superb having been to see them in blackpool at that now famous night, by pure accident and now whay dnt even want to say how many years later but felt 16 again. Amazing band. “Its not about how you sing but what your saying”. I think.
Good to see a different order from the expected norm.
Good Witch
2 minutes ago (edited)
I was there.Tickets sold out so I dragged my non music fan house mate up the hill from our shared squat in Wood Green spliff in hand and hung around for an hour. About to give up a bouncer came over and we gave him a tenner each and he parted the waves of the queue and planted us square in front of the stage. Great atmosphere but the sound ricocheted around the alcoves of Ally Pally so we couldn’t hear properly. Still, I can say i saw them when they broke through from what was then called Indie into the mainstream.