The first time Ian Brown visited us was May 2000 at Rodon, in one of the worst concerts I have ever attended.
That night disappointed me deeply, as I am a warm fan of all Stone Roses releases, even of Second coming – one of the least appreciated albums of the last 20 years.
As I could not stand a second disappointment I did not attend his next performance at Club 22 in mid zeros. But that was my mistake because, as I later found out, his performance there was much better. He had also performed four of the best songs by the Stone Roses: I Wanna Be Adored, Made Of Stone, Waterfall και She Bangs The Drums... But let's leave the past behind and let's go to Fuzz and what we saw there last Saturday.
Arriving at Fuzz for the first time and seeing that place, I came to agree that we finally have a decent and warm closed live stage, equal to the legendary Rodon. Unfortunately, I could not move forward in the full Fuzz, since I arrived late. Around 22.20 Ian showed up on stage. He started with Love like a fountain and next, again from Golden greats in 1999, was Golden gaze. In Time is my everything the audience had already warmed up and what followed was All Ablaze and Keep what ya got, in which the absence of Noel at vocals was obvious.
Afterwords, we heard Corpses in their mouths and several songs from last year's My way: Vanity
kills, Crowning of the poor, Laugh now and Marathon Man, where the stage spots had an unexplainable black out. Ian stopped the band twice before we actually manage to listen to the song, at the third effort. We also heard Longsight M 13, Sister Rose and the regular set closed with F.E.A.R., one of the most powerful moments of the concert. I say most powerful, as the most significant was yet to come…
So, the encore started under the best circumstances, as we finally heard live Fool’s gold, one of the best singles ever, at an almost 8-minute edition. At this point we should praise the exceptional drummer who accompanied Ian, as well as the great feature of the Indian at his homeland traditional percussion, who made the absence of Reni, the Stone Roses drummer, less noticeable! The encore continued with the hit single Stellify in a very bright performance with the audience singing back in excitement! For the closing, he held Just like you, a new single from My way.
To sum up, the weight of the approximately 80-minute set was given to his last year's album, My way,
along with selections from his most significant singles, except for My star which we did not hear. Ian has already acquired fans in Greece, since although concerts in the winter were rather few, it is not inconsiderable for an artist who already counts three performances in Athens to accomplish a sold out! As for Ian's vocal capacities, well they are well-known…