Express & Star

The day The Stone Roses were in the dock at Wolverhampton Crown Court

It's not often you can say, "I was there for a major rock event."

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And it's even less often that you can say, "I was there for a major rock event in Wolverhampton and got in trouble at school because of it," writes Pete Cashmore.

This is a picture of The Stone Roses lead singer Ian Brown arriving at Wolverhampton Crown Court in 1990, to answer a case of criminal damage against him and his three band-mates, about which more later.

To the left of the picture, you can see some of the 'faces' of the Wolverhampton 1990 indie scene – Fran and Emma with their cameras, Hayley in a pair of the voluminously baggy stone-washed jeans that were quite the thing at the time, and Jo, grinning all over her face.

And, behind Hayley, you can just see the top half of a young man's head (circled). A lanky specimen, for sure, with his hair yanked back into a ponytail, because you could get away with that kind of thing during the 'Madchester' period. That scrawny 16-year-old was yours truly.

The online world went berserk last Thursday when the band announced on social media that they would be releasing their first new material, after numerous false dawns and breakdowns and splits, for 22 years.

This is the way of the world nowadays – major acts can launch these kinds of wilfully nonchalant sneak attacks on the world, on a Thursday at 8pm, just for the sheer hell of it.

Even so, when an iconic act like The Stone Roses does it, it's an enormous deal. For over two decades, fans have waited for them to expand on a recorded canon that barely encompasses five years, and the attendant furore underlines how massive they were at the turn of the 90s, and continue to be.

So the day in 1990 that the Stone Roses came to town was always going to be a pretty big deal too.

The day that the Stone Roses had to come to court in Wolverhampton was, in fact, two days, once for an appearance at the Magistrates Court, and once for a rather more serious appearance at the new Crown Court, and the circumstances of their appearances make for one of the more fascinating and peculiar chapters in Black Country rock history.

By the end of 1989, The Stone Roses were enormous, saturated with critical acclaim and with a debut album slowly gathering a commercial momentum that didn't slow for years.

The controversial Sally Cinnamon single re-release

And, like many new bands, they had in their recent history taken a few embarrassing, faltering early mis-steps, for example their twee, inoffensive second single Sally Cinnamon, released on Wolverhampton-based label Revolver, which the label promptly reissued as the band's success began to snowball.

It wasn't the reissue that annoyed the band, so much as the accompanying, ham-fisted attempt at a video, done without the band's consent. And so, in January 1990, they decided to visit the offices of Revolver and express their displeasure by dousing them, owner Paul Birch, his wife and cars parked outside with paint. Rumour has it that all four band members were still dressed in paint-splattered clothes when they were subsequently arrested.

Revolver Records Boss Paul Birch, left

In mid-February, they were to appear at the old Wolverhampton Magistrates' Court on North Street, and non-coincidentally, dozens of indie fans like Fran, Emma, Hayley, Jo and myself became ill and needed the day off school that day.

We waited outside the court for hours, in our baggy sweatshirts and flares, and then there they were, pulling up in two cars. Cue minor pandemonium. Their manager attempted to usher them inside but the band were having none of it, stopping outside to gurn, pose for photos and soak up our bug-eyed adulation.

At one point bassist Gary 'Mani' Mounfield stole my hat for five minutes. None of us had ever been close to genuine rock stars before, and now one had half-inched my headgear.

Older and wiser – John Squire, Mani, Ian Brown, Reni

Annoyingly, a camera crew from Midlands Today was filming the throng, and I was not only caught on film and broadcast on the evening news, but at one point I turned and faced the camera obligingly because the operator was trying to move me out of the way and get a better shot.

I got in no small amount of trouble at school the next day, although to the credit of my year head Mr Neville, he also found my hopeless attempt at bunking off and its prime-time denouement hilarious.

So a few weeks later, when the band returned to the city, this time to the Crown Court, we obviously went back to see them again. The band escaped with a sizeable fine, and every last fan who was there, maybe 80-100 in total, was given a handful of free tickets to the band's just-announced mega-gig at Spike Island later that spring. With that single gesture, The Stone Roses were adopted as second sons of this great city – whether they liked it or not.

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