The Stone Roses: Made of Stone Review - Entertaining If Broad Musical Tribute

rating: 3

British auteur Shane Meadows was invited by The Stone Roses themselves to capture the lead-up to their summer return tour last year, and the director, clearly a huge fan, is evidently starstruck from the first minute he meets them. This is a double-edged sword of sorts in this reverent yet somewhat hagiographic doc, which captures the fans in all of their passionate obsessiveness, the band in some of their blunt honesty, yet not really a whole lot else. There's no doubting that the band's return after a 15-year separation period was big news for the British music industry, and Meadows' film does a palpable job of capturing the excitement of a legion of fans who assumed they'd never get to see the quartet on-stage together again. One particularly startling portion of the film, shot almost entirely in verite-style, monochromatic handheld as fans desperately dash to pick up free tickets to a warm-up show held by the band prior to their three jam-packed Heaton Park gigs, feels like pure Meadows, taking a potent snapshot of a very pure brand of musical appreciation. It won't be too surprising that the rabid fanaticism sees Meadows interviewing a few obnoxious obsessives - particularly one fan turned away from the warm-up gig who bemoans some people who got in that "know nothing about music" - and for the most part these segments will essentially be preaching to the converted. And that's precisely it; if you like the Roses, you'll glean a few interesting tidbits from the band's trials and tribulations - some of the archive footage featuring the band giving devastatingly awkward, frank interviews is hilarious - and if you're a hardcore fan, you're likely to enjoy simply spending 100 minutes with the band members and listening to their music, even if you'll ultimately not learn a whole lot new.

It is worth mentioning that, given the film's evident endorsement by the band, as well as Meadows' apparent proximity and unabashed fanboy-like mentality throughout the documentary, that it isn't the most revealing or toothed concert film out there; the feeling coming out of it is that much has been editorialised out of overt kindness and respect. For instance, the acrimonious post-split phase is glossed over relatively quickly and in little detail, yet while Meadows does admittedly go into more depth about a concert-threatening incident in which drummer Reni storms off stage, Meadows is oddly taciturn about it, conducting a piece-to-camera in which he readily asserts that the band don't want a camera shoved in their face. Given the hard-hitting nature of the director's narrative features, it seems like Meadows lost his bottle a little when confronted by one of his favourite bands having a tiff. Would fans not like to have seen the turmoil that went into resurrecting a long-dead artistic enterprise, and how this transpired into a hugely successful, widely acclaimed return to the top? Yes, of course, the Heaton Park shows went ahead just as they were supposed to, and The Stone Roses re-cemented their stature as one of Britain's all-time great musical acts, though the rather unfussed devotion of the film's final third to concert footage seems a little too easy; it would have been beneficial to hear some more words from the band on how they felt about the shows in retrospect as well as the future of the musical unit (after all, fans who care enough to see the performance were probably at one of the gigs anyway). What we get instead is a doting yet entertaining puff-piece that will please the band's fans even if it offers little insight into the men or their work. The Stone Roses: Made of Stone is on limited release from today.