Music Heritage UK • Spike Island to be immortalised in film

Spike Island to be immortalised in film

The festival at Spike Island featuring the Stone Roses in 1989 has been hailed by many commentators, as the start of the 1990s, a highlight of the second summer of love, an inspiration for Britpop, and a celebration of the ‘Madchester’ musical scene.

The Stone Roses were themselves at their best; riding high on top 10 hits and a critically acclaimed debut album. This 30,000 outdoor gig on the banks of the Mersey came on the back of gigs at Alexandra Palace in London and in Europe.

The gig has become the stuff of legend, despite people at the time complaining of the sound (seemingly recurrent theme as far as the Stone Roses live show was concerned) and a Melody Maker report at the time does a nice job of summing up what seems to be a let-down for the fans (thanks to the Stone Roses website for reproducing it).

However, it has since become “one of those gigs” that you had to be at. Essentially a badge of honour for Britpop connoisseurs, this concert is, along with Glastonbury 1995 (which not only featured Blur, Pulp and Oasis but Gene, Menswear, Ash, The Charlatans, Elastica and The Las too), thought of in the in the same way that Woodstock or the Isle of Wight festivals were for the swinging ‘60s generation.

This is discussed with humour by Noel Gallagher of Oasis in ‘Live Forever’, which came out a few years ago now which looked at the rise and fall of britpop, and describes Spike Island as one of the key moments in the birth of a new musical and cultural movement (see clip below).

The Spike Island concert is about to be immortalised in a rare way; through film. The film is the brainchild of actor, Chris Coghill (who played Happy Mondays maracas man Bez in the relatively recent 24 Hour party People) and the director of Channel 4’s Misfits, Tom Green.

The film is about a group of young people from a council estate in an unsigned band and uses the times around the Spike Island gig as the backdrop.

At Music Heritage UK we look forward to seeing this concert, which influenced so many (both fans and musicians alike) being immortalised on the big screen. It’s certainly a different way of paying homage to a seminal concert and it deserves its place in rock history - even if the sound was crap at the time.