Grim Reading for the Roses
QUESTION What are regarded as the most shambolic live performances by otherwise talented musicians?
ONE contender would have to be The Stone Roses’ infamous performance at the Reading Festival in August 1996. The Manchester band’s self-titled 1989 album – featuring the classic lineup of Ian Brown (vocals), John Squire (guitar), Mani (bass guitar) and Reni (drums) – is regarded as one of the greatest debut records of all time, and earned the band a devoted following.
However, times change, and there had been some ominous signs in the run-up to the Reading performance that things were going pear-shaped for the group.
For starters, the band’s longawaited sophomore record, The Second Coming, released in 1995, was largely regarded as a bloated mess and a major disappointment. To compound things, following its release, the group started to lose its core, as both Squire and Reni decided to quit.
Most bands would fold upon losing two such richly talented members, but the Roses opted to plough on. Robbie Maddix took over as drummer, Aziz Ibrahim assumed guitar duties, and keyboardist Nigel Ipinson was added to the live set-up. Sadly, the newlook Roses could not capture the magic of the group’s classic lineup, and this became painfully clear when they took to the stage at the Reading Festival.
Ibrahim, for his part, made a decent fist of replacing Squire, although Maddix always faced a tough task emulating Reni’s inspired stickwork. However, the biggest problem on the night was the performance of Brown himself – from the off, he struggled to hit a note, and his vocals remained painfully off-key throughout.
Footage of the gig can still be viewed on YouTube, and confirms the performance was as bad as people remember. The press were merciless in their criticism, with Johnny Cigarettes of the NME describing the band’s rendition of I Am The Resurrection, usually an ebullient fan favourite, as ‘more like the eternal crucifixion’.
Uncut magazine’s Michael Bonner was similarly scathing in a retrospective appraisal of the show, writing: ‘His [Brown’s] voice was flat, atonal, eye-poppingly dreadful. The crowd began to drift away, many shaking their heads in disbelief. People were actually crying at how bad it was. It felt like an entire generation had been let down.’ Thankfully, the band got the message – and dissolved in October 1996.
They reunited in 2011 – mercifully, with the classic lineup – before disbanding again in 2017.
Jonathan Murray, Dublin.
QUESTION When was the 52-card playing deck first used? What game would have been played?
THE Cloisters or Flemish Hunting Deck constitutes the only known complete 52-card deck of cards from the 15th century. The cards originated in the southern Netherlands and feature four suits, each consisting of a king, queen, jack and ten numeral or pip cards.
The suits are not the familiar spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts but are based on equipment associated with the hunt – horns, dog collars, hound tethers and game nooses. The value is indicated by appropriate repetitions of the symbol.
The figures are thought to be based on Burgundian court costume dating the cards to before 1480. In 1983 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York bought the set for $143,000 from a wily Dutch antiques dealer who’d purchased it for $2,800 a few years earlier at auction, having noticed that they were much older than their listed 16th-century date.
The precise game being played with the cards is unknown. It may have been Gleek, a popular threeplayer trick-taking game, with elaborate rules, popular throughout the 16th century. The game used a regular deck with the 2s and 3s removed, so there were 44 cards. There was also Laugh And Lie Down, a five-player ‘fishing game’ in which the player must accumulate pairs.
The title refers to the fact that when you can no longer capture any cards, you must ‘lay down’ by throwing your hand in – and the other players must laugh at you! Dr Ian Kenney, Birmingham.