Stone Roses have 80,000 people singing not only to every word but every note too

Billed as the gig of the summer, The Stone Roses comeback has been eagerly anticipated ever since 210,000 tickets sold out in a record 68 minutes last October.

After all the speculation about if they had reformed just for the money (reports suggest they pocketed a cool £23 million from the three gigs in ticket sales alone), in fighting again; this time between Ian Brown and drummer Reni, or if they would have any new material to showcase, it boiled down to one weekend in a drizzly open air park in North Manchester.

Arriving Manchester by train you immediately saw the regimented uniform of people going to the gig outside every single pub and bar wearing a polo shirt, slim fit jeans, adidas gazelle trainers and a bucket hat, yet the people wearing them are not young men in their 20's, but balding men in their 40's.

With this being the 3rd and final night, I had the advantage of friends texting me during the weekend giving advice such as smuggle your own booze in as the checks at the gate were pretty slack, bar queues inside the venue being terrible (up to 1 hour), sanitation wasn't much better and that it was muddy underfoot, all of which rang true when we arrived half way through The Wailers set.

Having settled on a good vantage point near the second set of speakers we took in Plan B who I thought was an odd choice for main support considering Friday and Saturday had Primal Scream and Beady Eye respectively. Soon after Mr Drew had finished murdering songs from the 1990's, it was time for the big moment we had all been waiting for.

Given that everyone I was with and most people we spoke to around us had seen Ian Brown play a solo set before I wasn't anticipating much of a big thing when they came on with 'I Wanna Be Adored' as we had all heard it played before. However I hadn't been in the middle of a crowd with 80,000 other people jumping up and down and singing not only to every word but every note too.

The beauty of this comeback is that given the Roses' only completed two albums before their split in 1996, virtually every song is a well-known hit and gives the audience a chance to embrace arm in arm across the field singing every word back at the stage.

Performances of 'Sally Cinnamon', 'Bye Bye Badman', 'Waterfall', 'She Bangs The Drums', 'This Is The One' and the more rocky 'Love Spreads' are greeted with rapturous applause from the crowd. Big highlight was a drawn out version of 'Fools Gold' with Squire and Reni jamming on stage for nearly 10 minutes.

Before we knew what was going on it was time for the Roses' to say goodbye and send the crowd home with an en mass sing along to 'I Am The Resurrection' complete with firework display at the end whilst the four band members embraced each other on stage.

Based on this performance they proved they still have got it, but will they manage to stay around long enough to prove it to everyone else?

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