To be brutally honest though, ‘Time Changes Everything’ wasn’t as good as it needed to be and the interest in his solo career soon died down. No such apathy for Ian Brown though, by 2004 he released an absolute gem of an album in the form of ‘Solerized’. One of it’s singles ‘Keep What Ya Got’ featured Oasis leader Noel Gallagher and whilst his influence on the song is very clear, it still retained all the charms that people were expecting from Ian Brown’s solo work.

During all this time Mani had played bass duties on two of Primal Screams best ever albums, ‘Vanishing Point’ and ‘XTRMNTR’, and as 2005 loomed was about to make it a perfect three with ‘Evil Heat’. Lyrically Bobby Gillespie was more political than he’d ever been, and those three albums for me at least, are three of the bands best moments.

John Squire did release a second solo album, ‘Marshall’s House’, and this time, to even more negative press. Although Squire had a third solo album recorded it became clear to him that his solo work was just not going to sustain him as a solo artist, and shelved the proposed third album.

At the 2006 NME awards Ian Brown was awarded the ‘God Like Genius’ award. Ten years before the widely respected Music Paper as slating Brown, now he was getting one of the Papers highest accolades. To be fair to the NME what Ian had done was nothing short of astounding, his comeback was largely not expected and when he did come back with ‘Unfinished Monkey Business’, ‘Golden Greats’ and ‘Solerized’ he eclipsed all expectations.

In 2007 Brown released ‘The World Is Yours’ and again, it was received by largely good reviews.

The album was quite political in places and saw Ian Brown on tip top form. In 2009 he released his 6th studio album entitled ‘My Way’ which in fairness wasn’t as strong as Brown’s previous efforts.

In 2011 rumours circulated that the unthinkable might actually happen. The Stone Roses were going to get back together. I must confess i just didn’t believe it could be true.

The band held a press conference explaining that the sad loss of a family member of Mani’s led the band to start talking again. They knew time was a factor if they were ever going to reform. Another trigger point for the band were the UK riots. The band felt the time was right. They announced a World Tour and said they would be playing 3 huge outdoor concerts in Heaton Park in Manchester.

Those gigs were brilliant, i live 6 miles away from that park and i could hear ‘Waterfall’ almost perfectly. It had happened. The band were back. Over 2012 and into 2013 the band have been playing Festivals and gigs across the globe. We are awaiting the bands third album….

Will it be as good as the previous two ? Time will tell.

TSO