Splendid Gentlemen

We Don’t Play Any Stone Roses, Mate

It would seem that this is a bold statement to make, which was never something we would have anticipated when starting out some 5 years ago. It does, however, seem to provoke the same facial reaction of shock and horror in recipients as the phrases, “You look fat in that.” or “Isn’t your child horribly ugly?’ do. Not that I am prone to saying either. These are just examples I would think would produce a similar reaction.

The never failing follow up statement of, “You must!” followed by several moments of insulted disbelief, followed by a request for a specific Stone Roses song, just incase we played a Stone Roses song and didn’t know it, followed by an attempt to sing said Stone Roses song in a last ditch effort to jog our memory, always winds up with the Militant Stone Roses Fan asking, “How can you be a band an not play any Stone Roses?”

Allow me to answer your question.

There is a certain character, over the years we have come to call them, “The Tie Round the Head Guy” at almost every wedding we have ever had the pleasure of playing at. You can usually spot them right away as, when we arrive to set up at 7pm, they are always the only person who has managed to get spectacularly more drunk than everyone else combined at such an early hour. Favourite pastimes include wearing the neck tie round the head, hence the name, windmill air guitar playing on empty dance floors when background music is playing, shouting enthusiastically but totally incoherently about completely unknown things which have pleased them and sliding across dance floors on their knees.

Though nowadays we consider ourselves to be seasoned professionals, our first ever wedding was a tense affair. When we started out, we were playing pub gigs at the start of 2011 and, before the purchase of our first van, Dudley Deathtrap the First, a gig usually involved fitting all our equipment between Craig’s car and Scott and I’s parents two cars. A wedding was different though. It was much more of an important affair. We wanted to be true professionals, so we hired a van just for the occasion to take our things to the gig. We packed our hired van and excitedly set off on the road.

On trying to find the venue for the night, which we shall not name, our Sat Nav lead us to a fork in the road. To the left was situated a creepy looking farmhouse, which Scooby Doo and Co. would probably have turned away from and to the right, a darkened, dirt road with more potholes than a battlefield, accompanied by a wooden sign, hand painted in giant, red letters saying, “Not suitable for road vehicles.” as our Sat Nav lady calmly said, “In 10 yards turn right.” No thank you, petal. Back to the main road for us.

So there we were, lost, in the middle of nowhere and with only 20 minutes to find out exactly where we were meant to be. Eventually we backtracked, knocked on a few front doors, asked a few passers by about the venue and eventually settled on the tactic of, “There’s lights up there in them hills. Let’s head for them.” Luckily, our hunch paid off. (Do not fear potential or future wedding clients or persons considering asking for the deposit back. Being seasoned veterans now, maps are consulted and directions are written down before leaving, contingency time is built in for hold ups and we are always accompanied with maps and GPS on our phones to make sure we are always there on time.)

Upon arriving, shaken up from our misadventure and a little nervous to be playing our first big wedding gig we entered the venue and after meeting the lovely Bride and Groom, we came across our first ever Tie Round the Head Guy.

As soon as we were through the door he was on us in a flash. We carried guitars and drums, so asking us if we were the band caught us a little off guard, but the enthusiastic Gentleman helped us in with some of our equipment while regaling us with tales of where himself and “Big Tam”, (we didn’t know who Big Tam was either) had been the previous weekend. He seemed like an alright guy.

We set up our equipment and began to play. It was a little nerve wracking, being our first wedding and all, but we were getting in to the swing of it. People started dancing right away and everyone seemed to be having a good time. Everyone that is except the angry looking man to my left who was clearly trying to get my attention. When the song finished I approached said Gentleman who said, “You’ll have to stop playing. Someone has had a fit in the next room and the paramedic cant hear for your music.”

So we stopped, and stood, wand waited, and stood a little longer, as everyone stared, wondering why we had stopped playing while they were dancing. We chatted, we invited people up to make speeches and after an eternity of waiting, Angry Man said we could play again, but quieter. So play we did. First song finished, Cue Stone Roses Guy Enter Stage Left:

He approached and shook my hand passionately.

“Top stuff lads. Top stuff! Here, do you know any Stone Roses?”
“Sorry, we don’t know any of their stuff.”
“You must!”
“…No…Sorry, we don’t.”
“Aww, come on! You must know The Stone Roses!”
“Sorry pal. No Stone Roses from us.”
*The dance floor was quickly clearing as dancers getting fed up waiting on the next song went to the bar or back to their seats.
“You must! What about I Want To Be Adored?”

“…Nope.”

“Waterfall?!”
“…Nope.”

“Awwww come on! What about? I Am the Resurrection?”
“Sorry pal, we don’t know any Stone Roses at all.”
“Aye, you do! You must. What about *Sings* Aaaaaaaaaaahh I want to be aaaaaddooooooored!”

“…Sorry.”
“Ahh you must! What about Oasis?”
“Sorry, none of theirs either.” (We have since fixed this and now know several Oasis songs)
“Oasis! You Must!”……
And so went on the pantomime of “Oh, yes you do. Oh, no I don’t” until we had no other choice but to start playing something else and cut the fella off mid sentence.

We started to play and the dance floor began to fill once again, but to our dismay Mr. Tie Round the Head Militant Stone Roses also had a cue ball effect on the dance floor, drunkenly flapping up to groups of young women trying to dance and chasing them off the floor like a fox chases hens back in to the hen house. When he had the floor completely to himself, he started acting out the lines of the song, so Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman became a bizarre, one man pantomime, with everyone else wanting to dance, hanging around the edges of the dance floor, too scared to step on for fear of being danced at and objectified as the, “Pretty Woman” in the act.

As this was going on, Angry Man made a sudden return, demanding we turn down more to help the paramedic. We obliged, but when turned back around to sing the next song, Tie Round The Head Stone Roses Guy was waiting again at the mic.

He shook my hand passionately.

“Top stuff lads. Top stuff. Here, Do you know any Stone Roses?…..”

For the next 10 songs or more, Militant Stone Roses Tie Round the Head Guy approached the stage after every song, enthusiastically shaking my hand, asking the exact same questions as if between songs, Stone Roses entire back catalogue had beamed through a lightening bolt in to our heads and we were now the premium Stone Roses Tribute Act. We had to eventually shout to each other near the end of every song so that there were no pauses between songs where he could creep in and make conversation. While all this was going on, Angry Man was constantly making gestures to turn down, to the point where our amps were so low you could whisper over them and the only remaining option for less sound was for Scott to simply pack up the drums and head home.

Severely shaken, we got to our break. Thankfully, the Bride and Groom were over the moon with our performance and rushed up to tell us so and to apologise for Angry Man giving us such a hard time about the ill person in the next room. Personally, I would have moved them to a quieter back room, but I am no medical expert.

Our ordeal was not over though. Craig, stepping outside to phone his girlfriend was to continue receiving the wrath of Tie Round the Head Militant Stone Roses Guy. While he stood on his phone, talking away, as you do on a telephone, Mr. Roses approached, smoking a cigarette.

“TWO WORDS, MATE! TWO WORDS!” his hand in the shape of a peace sign, waving right in Craig’s face to be certain there was no doubt about how many words were to be expected in the following statement.
“I’m on the phone, pal.” Craig politely replied.
“SECOND WORD!….ROSES!

FIRST WORD…” his hand changing again, to indicate only one digit. His index flying close to Craig’s eyes just to let him know that there would only be one remaining word to be expected in this statement.

“FIRST WORD…STOOOOOONNNEEESSSS!!!!! STONE F*CKING ROSES!!!!!’…..Aye it was last week, me and Big Tam were up the toon and…” his story continued on to tell the tale of his and Big Tam’s adventures to see a Stone Roses Tribute band while Craig stood, making his best efforts to keep some degree of fluency and normalcy to the conversation he was still trying to have on his telephone while this parade was happening in front of him.

While this was going on, I was getting an earful off of an angry, elderly Gentleman about how not everyone liked rock [we play many genres, including rock. My suspicions were than this deduction was based on my haircut and not on the rock, pop, dance, and country songs we had already played] and he wanted disco. [In fairness, we could not play a disco song.] He demanded to see a full copy of our repertoire for his approval and seemingly forgot that lots of people were already dancing and quite enjoying what we were doing. When we went back on though, he seemed to forget all about the disco and danced the rest of the night.

The rest of the wedding, to be honest, was a roaring success. The dance floor was full for the rest of the night, the person in the next room, it is believed, did not die, everyone had a good time and the Bride and Groom seemed over the moon with us when we were making to leave. Though Tie Round the Head Guy hammered us with more tales of adventure accompanied by the ever faithful Big Tam like Dr. Watson to Stone Sherlock Roses, we were learning pretty quick how to use our selective hearing and tune him out, the way your brain naturally tunes out bird song as a non essential survival skill. Also, in a wonderful display of Instant Karma, at the end of the night, the Elderly Gentleman who had been giving me a hard time at the break, purposely bumped his shoulder in to Craig in an intentionally intimidating, male testosterone, dominance gesture and while looking back to snarl his lip at us as he walked away, tripped over a low wall and bashed his head on the ground. [Fear not, he was okay. I sustained multiple injuries to my face, ribs and stomach muscles though from laughing so hard.] Roaring success all round.

Back in the van after a stressful and gruelling induction in to the world of Professional Wedding Work we sat quiet, not sure what to say. “I hate him!” Scott piped up. “He might actually be thee most annoying person I’ve ever met in my life.” We all agreed. He was definitely the most annoying person we had ever met in our lives.

It’s not that we have anything against the Stone Roses as a band. Personally I think their music is boring, but my job is not to judge or let personal taste dictate what I play. My job is to learn songs that people want to hear and play the right song, to the right audience, at the right time of the night. Judging which is right and when is a skill I have developed quite successfully over the last 5 years. But in our hired transit van, tired after our very stressful first ever wedding, we all made a solid pact that, purely because of that one man’s behaviour, out of spite, never would we ever play a Stone Roses song as Splendid Gentlemen.

Since that day we have had many a similar conversation with many a Militant Stone Roses Fan, almost as if the spirit of that particular Tie Round the Head Guy was carried away with us and passed on to any other Militant Stone Roses fan we meet. The shock. The horror. The brain frazzling as the lips pucker, stammer and form in to the words, “You must!” still haunts us so, to the point where we can now enter a room and point out people and say, “Before the night is through, they will ask us to play Stone Roses.” and we have never been wrong.

Now, having been doing this for 5 years, we have met a lot of wonderful, exciting and interesting people, as well as many, many Tie Round the Head Guys but still, Mr. STONE F*CKING ROSES Tie Round the Head Guy sits at Number 2 on our Most Annoying People We’ve Ever Met List.

The Number 1 slot goes to, The Binkies Pest, but that, little Splendudes and Splendettes, is a story for another day.