Music

 

One on one with The Smiles.

Q1...How did the story start for the band? how did we all come together

Jake.we all came together over a pair of russian sluts on the top deck of the teeside princess before being served boiled meat and drinking watered down iron bru...

Gavin (laughs) Few of us have been doing various bands and gigging and writing our own gear for a number of yrs now, We have all known each other through our musical adventures..The seed was sown early summer and The Smiles were born.

Simon... the band are a meeting of musical minds, when bands split up over musical difference, we are that difference...

Q2. sail on is a absolute gem,what was the inspiration behind it?

Gavin Thank you.. Sail on was the very 1st song me and liam had written together in The Smiles,The song is very close to my heart as its about my mother who had passed away.

Liam. Sail on is a funny one as the lyrics me and gavin written are about being as one with someone but from different perstectives.Its a mish mash of feelings in one song.

Q3.What are the band currently doing? are you making any plans to go on tour?

Liam.. Always making plans to get out of town but no proper tour yet.Price of petrol and plectrums are on top of us!!

Gavin There is no plans for The smiles to go on any tours at the moment,Were doing as much as we can out of our hometown to get a following so this is what the band are concentrating on at the moment.Of course if tour supports come along yes we would snap people's hands off but we need our profile out there in order for people to recognise us and our music...

Q4.which other musicians/bands influence us the most?

Gavin Me personally it has to be The La's ,Lee mavers is a songwriting genuis,Alot of people think it all stops for The la's with There she goes but believe me there is so much more behind Mavers. Other faves would have to be The real people,Doves,Inspiral carpets,Stone roses,The smiths,Ocean colour scene Just timeless bands with timeless lyrics and melodies that stay in your head forever.
 

The Big Story;

This was the one!

The Stone Roses live.

I sat through Jessie J to get a good spot for Noel Gallagher and the Stone Roses. Luckily enough, everyone at the front left after Jessie J, probably off to see some hip hop dude with a set of decks, but the fans of the Manchester music scene stayed for the most glorious night of their lives.

With my friend Kirsty I managed to get on the second row. Being as small as I am all weekend I was employed to push through the crowds so that we could get a good spot, a job that I excelled at during Saturday night. We waited fifty minutes whilst the likes of the La's, the Beatles, and Oasis were getting played to us on the speakers, each of us eagerly waiting for the Stone Roses. Then the song genre switched, suddenly a woman's vocal entered the speakers, every member of the audience looked up to hear this woman sing the line "The Stone Roses" and at the instance everyone began cheering as this ghostly tune carried on.

Mani, Ian Brown, Reni and John Squire entered the stage as the loudest cheer I have ever heard lit up the whole of Scotland. There stands Ian Brown with his bells as his band begin 'I wanna be adored' behind him, Mani quietly nods along with his bass, Squire has a face of utter concentration - almost as if he doesn't want to let one note slip, and for the whole show he never missed a single note or did anything wrong in the slightest. Reni, with his ripped up cloth tied around his head, fluently patters his sticks onto his drum set, I was a little angry at this point because Reni didn't have his fisherman hat on - but I screamed amazingly loud when he stuck it on. And then there's Brown, he stands like a God as he echoes the words "I don't have to sell my soul, he's already in me", and there was not one person in that audience who didn't get shivers during that performance.

ny Roses fan will have fallen in love with the setlist. I never realised how great the Stone Roses were until I had seen them, obviously I knew how they are a great band and I've always known this but live? They take your breath away. At first I was unable to put their electric performance into words, and I'm still struggling, but let me tell you now; it is the best gig I have ever witnessed in all my life. What I love in a band is when they are all as strong, musically, as each other and it's easy to see why, in their press conference, Brown mentioned the phenomenon of how well they all play together.

During 'This is the one' everyone chanted "this is the one" as soon as that guitar riff began. I was a little sad to see the Brown wasn't doing his trademark dance move, so I decided to do it for myself. But what a performance this was, easily their best moment of the gig.

Throughout the whole gig Brown was here, there, and everywhere, he often came over to our side of the stage - even waving at us at one point. He'd stand right on the edge of the stage shaking his bells and every person on our side cheered at their hero, but for me this gig was made by Squire. I've never seen such a great live guitarist before, I'd never known what's been meant as an amazing performance until I'd seen Squire.

The Stone Roses are easily the best performers at T in the park, they just about managed to beat Kasabian, for me. I would just love to relive this night over and over again, words cannot explain their performance.

I've also come back from T with a huge crush on Reni.