Made of Stone Film Premier live relay Newcastle Tyneside Cinema 30 May 2013
Laura and I went to the Tyneside Cinema last night to see the Stone Roses documentary, Heart of Stone. The screening was relayed live from the premier which took place at the Victoria Warehouse Manchester. The film was simultaneously broadcast to 200 UK cinemas, and goes on general release nationwide on 5 June. The show started off with interviews of fans arriving on the red carpet, including members of the cast of This is England (which was also directed by Shane Meadows), and Mick Jones of The Clash. Then Shane, Ian Brown, John Squire, and Mani (Reni had a cold!), were introduced to the Manchester crowd (and us!) and the film was shown. Meadow’s documentary features footage from across the band’s career and their comeback shows of last year. It tracked the reunion from its announcement at a press conference in London, through some great video of the rehearsals, the secret warm-up show at Warrington Parr Hall, gigs in Europe and finished with footage from the tremendous Heaton Park gigs (Laura and I were at the Sunday gig). This was interspersed with flashbacks to the Roses in their early days. I enjoyed the movie, the live footage from Warrington (now that must have been a gig to be at!) and Heaton Park being the best bits. Personally I would have preferred a little less of the former (there was quite a bit about the excitement of fans getting their tickets for Warrington) and more of the latter. This was more a celebration of the band and the reunion from a fan perspective (Meadows is a massive Roses fan) with little analysis of the band and the relationship between the members. The incident in Amsterdam where Reni refused to come back on stage for an encore (Ian to the crowd: “the drummers gone home” and “the drummers a c**t”) was shown, but we were told little about what really happened, indeed the film crew left the tour at that point, so as not to intrude, and picked things p again at Heaton Park. The documentary captures excellent versionz of Fools Gold at Heaton Park and of She’s a Waterfall during rehearsals. After the film there was a Q&A with Shane Meadows. This simultaneous broadcast is an interesting concept and worked quite well last night. The Tyneside Cinema was pretty full, and the crowd clearly enjoyed the movie, applauding it at the end.
31 May
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Posted by brotherwhitters on June 1, 2013 at 3:09 pm
Great review!