The Stone Roses are defintiely back in business, selling out all three nights of their reunion concerts already – earning the band £12.3million gross.
An astonishing 225,000 tickets have been sold for the three mega-concerts at Heaton Park, Manchester. The first 150,000 tickets for two dates sold out in just 14 minutes after going on sale at 9am this morning, before promoters released a third gig at the same venue a short time later.
The feat made the dates the fastest selling rock concerts in UK history.
Inevitably, scalpers already lining up to gouse true fans by reselling tickets for a steep profit. The cheapest tickets available on SeatWave, the secondary ticketing site, are selling for £128 against a face price of £55, with sellers on eBay demanding even more.
Stone Roses fans were delighted this week when, after months of denying they were going to get back together, guitarist John Squire, frontman Ian Brown, bassist Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield and drummer Alan ‘Reni’ Wren – sat side-by-side in a London hotel to announce the second coming of the Roses.
Squire and Brown, boyhood friends who famously met in a sandpit aged four, stopped speaking altogether and most fans had long given up hope of ever seeing them perform together again.
It will be the first time they have played together live in 17 years and the band plans to go international with their resurrection.
Brown, the band’s leader, said their first intention was to ‘uplift’ the national mood in hard times.
He said : ‘’We (originally) wanted to announce our reunion the day after the riots.’
The band’s eponymous debut album is regarded as one of the greatest British albums of all time.
That LP – featuring songs like I Wanna Be Adored, She Bangs The Drums and Made of Stone – was released in May 1989 when the band had already built a huge following in the North West.
Fans who missed out on Stone Roses tickets can have the blow softened with the news that tickets to New Kids On The Block’s April shows are still available for purchase.
