Ian Brown to play Wolves Civic

Mancunian music icon Ian Brown has announced he is to play Wolverhampton Civic Hall on August 25th. When reading the announcement it brought back bad memories of my 1st and to be frank what will be my only live encounter with the ex Stone Roses frontman.

It was in October 2007 at the Birmingham Academy I remeber thinking that it would be a great opportunity to hear some classics from the Roses archive along with a few of his own decent tunes, especially the atmospheric F.E.A.R. With the gig sold out I purchased a ticket off a tout for fifty quid, the most I have ever paid for show at that point, so the expenctancy level grew.

After some flirting with a single mom,Brown swaggered on to stage breaking into the opener off the Roses debut album I Wanna Be Adored. From the opening vocal I knew it was fifty quid I would have been better spending at Spearmint Rhinos! Brown was woefully out of kilter I should have listened to my mate Matt who has always berated Brown's vocal skills. After butchering one Roses song he only played two more which was less than I expected but considering how they were delivered it was no great loss. His stage show merely consisted of a few macho poses, and plenty of egoism. He did redeem himself with a neat version of Dolphins Were Monkeys, but on the whole his monotone warblings made it a gig to forget.