The Stone Roses live San Francisco 95 Double 12"

	£		85
	$		113

The Stone Roses live San Francisco 95 Double 12"

The Stone Roses – Last Night in America
The Fillmore, San Francisco – 31 May 1995

There is something gloriously appropriate about calling this boot ** Last Night in America **.

The Stone Roses arrived at San Francisco's Fillmore at the end of an increasingly chaotic American tour, and what survives on this double-12" set is a band playing as if they have absolutely nothing left to lose.

And yet, somehow, they sound on fire.

The really remarkable part, though, is what was happening to the band physically that night.

Mani was playing with a broken finger in a splint.

He had injured it in Los Angeles over the weekend and had already played two shows with the injury by the time the Roses reached San Francisco. Contemporary reporting confirms that he was still playing bass that night despite the splint.

You would never know it from the playing.

Mani's finger might be broken. His bass isn't.

Listen to that Rickenbacker.

He's absolutely attacking the thing.

There's nothing tentative about Mani's playing. He doesn't sound like somebody protecting an injured hand; he sounds like he's got a personal grievance against every note coming out of that bass.

The bass has a wonderful physical presence throughout this recording — particularly when the band gets into the heavier Second Coming material. Mani doesn't merely sit underneath Squire; he's pushing the songs forward, giving them that enormous rolling momentum which makes this version of the Roses so different from the original incarnation.

And that's the secret of this recording.

The injury becomes part of the mythology, but the performance itself doesn't sound injured.

If anything, it sounds angry.

The whole band is locked in

Robbie Maddix is still the new man behind the kit, but by San Francisco he's sounding considerably more comfortable in the role.

He isn't Reni. He doesn't have Reni's twitchy funk or miraculous sense of swing. What he does have is weight.

That suits Second Coming.

Daybreak and Breaking Into Heaven become one long, heavy groove, while I Am the Resurrection has that wonderful sense of the band gradually winding itself tighter and tighter before letting Squire loose.

And then there's Squire.

Squire is playing like a man possessed.

The contemporary San Francisco review described the band as having considerable "instrumental firepower", highlighting Squire's extended guitar work and describing the Daybreak/Breaking Into Heaven section as a furious, riveting jam. It also noted that even with Brown occasionally going flat, the performance retained its impact.

That's exactly what comes across on this boot.

And the crowd...

They're absolutely wild.

This is what makes Last Night in America more than simply another Second Coming boot

The Fillmore crowd sounds like they've been waiting six years for this.

And they had.

The contemporary San Francisco Chronicle review noted that the Roses were playing their first Bay Area show and that the capacity crowd greeted I Wanna Be Adored with enormous enthusiasm after the band's long absence from the US.

You can hear that anticipation in the recording.

When the opening songs kick in, the audience isn't politely appreciating a British band. They're throwing themselves into it.

She Bangs the Drums gets that huge communal response. Waterfall still has the old magic. Then the band starts dragging everyone into the darker, heavier world of Second Coming.

By the time they reach I Am the Resurrection, the distinction between band and audience almost disappears.

Ian is Ian

And then there's Brown.

He's an interesting contrast to everything happening around him.

Where Squire is attacking the guitar and Mani is attacking his Rickenbacker with a broken finger, Brown remains remarkably detached.

He doesn't need to sound like a conventional rock singer.

In fact, his slightly nasal, cool, distant delivery works surprisingly well against the sheer weight of the band. The contemporary review even remarked that occasional flat notes didn't undermine the performance.

On this particular night, the crowd effectively does some of the work for him anyway.

They know every word.

And that is part of the beauty of live Roses boot from 1995. Ian doesn't necessarily have to deliver every line perfectly because thousands of people are already singing it back at him.

The set is superb

There's a lovely balance to the four sides:

Side One

I Wanna Be Adored
She Bangs the Drums
Waterfall
Ten Storey Love Song

That's the classic Roses DNA.

Side Two

Daybreak
Breaking Into Heaven

The new Roses arrive — heavier, looser and prepared to stretch out.

Side Three

Your Star Will Shine
Tightrope
Elizabeth My Dear
I Am the Resurrection
Good Times

And then everything starts catching fire.

Side Four

Love Spreads
Made of Stone
Driving South

A magnificent way to finish.

The boot guide puts the running time at around 80 minutes and rates the recording as generally clean, with decent bass. More importantly, it regards the performance as one of the band's strongest American shows. Its a great sounding album for a Boot

And then the hammer falls

There's another layer of mythology attached to this particular night.

This really was the end of the American run. The band had completed an 11-show North American tour when, shortly afterwards, John Squire suffered a serious mountain-bike accident near San Francisco, breaking his collarbone and shoulder blade. The resulting injury forced the cancellation of the upcoming shows, including the planned Glastonbury appearance.

So listening to Last Night in America with that knowledge gives the record an extraordinary sense of finality.

Mani is already playing with a broken finger.

The band are exhausted.

The Roses are operating with a new drummer after Reni's departure.

Ian's vocals remain unpredictable.

Squire is throwing himself into the guitar.

And the audience is going absolutely wild.

Yet the band sounds magnificent.

That's the great contradiction of the 1995 Stone Roses.

Everything around them seems to be falling apart.

The music doesn't.

Last Night in America is therefore a superb boot — not because it's perfect, but because it captures the Roses at full volume, full tension and full attack.

And Mani?

Broken finger, splint and all, he storms through the bloody thing like nothing has happened.

Just listen to that Rickenbacker.

The man's injured and still sounds like he's trying to knock the Fillmore down.

A brilliant document of the Roses' final American night: the band on fire, the crowd on fire, and everything else about the Stone Roses in 1995 slowly catching fire around them.