The Stone Roses 2012 reunion tour has added more shows.
Six weeks ago, following their official press conference announcing the reunion, the band initially sold out three homecoming dates at Manchester’s Heaton Park next June.
Since then, Stone Roses have been confirmed as headliners for three festivals: Spain's Benicassim, Scotland's T In The Park and Japan's Fuji Rock Festival.
Now, the band has announced another two festival appearances for next summer, and the shows will actually precede the homecoming gigs be a few weeks.
The Roses will play Denmark's NorthSide festival (June 15–17) and Sweden's Hultsfred festival (June 14-16).
At this time, it now appears the reunion tour will debut at one of the two new dates, unless earlier shows are announced moving forward.
A week after The Stone Roses confirmed their reunion, singer Ian Brown was in a Chester, UK court Monday settling up on an old speeding ticket.
The Belfast Telegraph reports Brown escaped a driving ban after he was clocked speeding at 105mph this past April.
Ian, 48, appeared before Chester magistrates who fined him £650 and gave his driving licence six penalty points, after the singer pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to speeding in his Lexus car on the M6. He was also ordered to pay £300 prosecution costs and a £15 victim surcharge.
Prosecutor Alison Warburton told the court Brown was caught speeding on the M6 northbound, near Holmes Chapel, Cheshire, on April 25 this year at around 12.30am. She said a police officer followed his car for five miles and that he drove at 105mph for about a mile. His speed never dropped below 94mph, the court heard.
The police officer then pulled Ian over, who disputed that he was driving that fast and initially entered a not guilty plea to the charge.
Brown’s lawyer, Nick Freeman, dubbed "Mr Loophole" by the media after successfully defending a number of celebrity clients charged with speeding offences, said Ian changed his plea to guilty before his trial when he realized that the speeds clocked by the police were correct.
Brown thanked the court after his lawyer argued that a driving ban would have caused him "insurmountable" difficulties in relation to seeing his 11-year-old son, who lives in London with his mother, and in attending Stone Roses band rehearsals, which are taking place at "a remote secret location."
On Friday, The Stone Roses immediately sold out the first three shows of a planned reunion tour, which starts next June in their hometown of Manchester.
It would be an understatement to suggest The Stones Roses are hot again – they’re on fire.
The BBC reports the band have sold out three nights at Manchester's Heaton Park after announcing their reunion, earlier this week.
On Friday, the first two shows sold out in just 14 minutes, with a third date added shortly afterwards. In total, fans snapped up 220,000 tickets, priced at £55, within 68 minutes of booking lines opening.
"We plan on spending the rest of the day jumping up and down with our hands in the air," said frontman Ian Brown.
The classic line-up of the band announced they were reforming on Tuesday, 16 years after they last appeared on stage together; The Stone Roses are best known for hits like “I Wanna Be Adored” and “Fools Gold,” and their iconic, self-titled, debut album.
After their three-night residency in Manchester - from 29 June to 1 July, 2012 - the band are expected to embark on a world tour.
No further dates have been announced, but The Sun newspaper reports that they have been signed up to play Scotland's T In The Park Festival next summer.
The Manchester quartet recorded just two albums before the group dissolved amidst legal wranglings and personal disagreements.
As expected, The Stone Roses are making a comeback in 2012.
The band held a press conference in London Tuesday morning to confirm the regroup, a pair of UK live dates that will fire up a world tour, and that new material is in the works.
The Guardian reports the long-awaited news – the resurrection has been some time in coming, with rumors circulating for several years – was announced at a packed Soho Hotel in central London.
Despite legal wrangling with record companies, fall-outs and vehement assurances they would never get back together, the original lineup – singer Ian Brown, guitarist John Squire, bassist Gary "Mani" Mounfield and drummer Alan "Reni" Wren – announced two gigs at Heaton Park in Manchester on June 29 and 30, 2012.
Tickets go on sale this Friday at 9:30 AM UK time.
The shows will mark the first time the band have played together in 16 years. They will be playing new songs, but when asked about a new album, Brown said: "We hope so, but we said that before didn't we?" He added: "We'll ride this until the wheels come off, like we did last time."
The Stone Roses exploded on to the British indie scene in 1989 with their eponymous album, hailed as one of the greatest debuts of all time. Their psychedelic sound spoke to a generation of ravers during the second "summer of love." In their hometown of Manchester hundreds of fans gathered outside sold-out gigs, and at the height of their fame nearly 30,000 people attended the "baggy Woodstock" at Spike Island near Widnes in 1990.
But the group became snared in a lengthy legal battle with their label Silvertone, unable to release new music before a court case left them free to sign with Geffen. The follow-up to their debut, “Second Coming,” was finally released in 1994, but failed to meet inflated expectations.
Drummer Reni left in 1995, followed a year later by guitarist and songwriter John Squire – whose ranging riffs were as integral to the Stone Roses' sound as Brown's distinctive vocals – and the band split up the same year. Brown went on to create six albums, bassist Mani joined Primal Scream, while Squire, who created the artwork for the band's first album, formed the short-lived Seahorses before deciding to concentrate on art.
There’s more to this Stone Roses story at The Guardianhere.
15 years after the band last played together, The Stone Roses are expected to officially announce their reunion plans at a UK press conference on Tuesday.
Formed in 1983, The Stone Roses were one of the pioneers of what became known as the “Madchester” movement, as the Manchester group mixed the worlds of alt-rock, psych-rock and dance music…get yer groove on, man.
The band’s 1989 self-titled debut remains a highly-influential and respected piece of work, often high on musicians’, music fans’ and critics’ lists of faves.
With rumors circulating for days, The Telegraph now says singer Ian Brown has reportedly confirmed that the band are to reunite, with one of his friends claiming the star told him: “It’s happening.”
Speculation of the reunion mounted after a major music publicist sent out invitations to journalists on Friday to "a special press conference for a very important announcement".
A spokesman for Murray Chalmers PR, which is handling Tuesday’s event, refused to deny or confirm whether it would announce their return.
But a friend of Brown has told The Sun that he received a text message from the frontman, saying the rumours are true.
The friend, named Dynamo, told the tabloid that the message read: “"We are going to rule the world again. It's happening."
The newspaper also reported that Elbow frontman Guy Garvey was overheard talking abut the news at the Manchester Literary Festival, claiming that the original Stone Roses line-up had been rehearsing together over the summer in Manchester.
We’ll await news from Tuesday’s press conference; in the meantime, for more details, check out The Telegraphhere.
The Stone Roses ![The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses (20th Anniversary Edition) [Remastered] - I Am the Resurrection](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ucLi3_cOMLFeIDDQNgLXpwPAAvuWO8RNG4e_cOecl5vWQENaeTIXeiMasaq13FVQmOjEGCKKGnUqsYo4RNGtfFFSXr3U5mmwdWSV1Fhc7CVzgTOKz8PZg8FzXwIb-TYXRY3gz9hsAFVMAc=s0-d){kind=small}
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses (20th Anniversary Edition) [Remastered] - I Am the Resurrection