he is adored

A ansiedade e a expectativa que me cercavam diante da possibilidade de assistir ao show eram enormes. Fui na última hora por insistência de uma grande amiga (gracias Vanessa), que me dizia que, mesmo com ingressos praticamente esgotados, eu conseguiria entrar. Dito e feito, mesmo com um pouco de taquicardia, dei sorte e pude estar cara a cara com Mr. Ian Brown 20 anos depois de ter sido para sempre capturado pela música de um disco quase inacreditável, The Stone Roses.

Mágico seria uma palavra demasiado vulgar para tentar descrever o ambiente e o clima daquele show histórico no Razzmatazz, em Barcelona. Aos primeiros acordes de "I wanna be adored", o público simplesmente enlouqueceu e pude vislumbrar o que devem ter sido os primeiros shows no Hacienda em Manchester, back in 1987.

Um show catársico, um set list clássico, um vocalista transformado em um gigante no palco e um carioca em estado de êxtase. Realmente arrebatador.

Ian se considera um cara sensível na entrevista abaixo (e de muito bom senso), depois de tão bons serviços prestados ao universo da música pop, quem sou para dizer que não. Confiram na íntegra:

You split up with the Stone Roses in 1996. Do you get tired of still being asked about a reunion?

It doesn't eat me up, but it's not my favourite subject. I've been solo for 11 years now. My Way is my sixth album. Some of the kids who discovered me from my F.E.A.R. record, or one of the U.N.K.L.E. tunes, have said, "I don't even like the Roses; I love your solo stuff." I buzz off that. I'm happy about the Roses, I'm happy I did it. I'm happy about that album, that 20 years later it still gets lauded.

So why do you veto the thought of a reunion?

All good things come to an end. At the time, it was about the spirit of the band, that gang mentality, you against the world. How can we recreate that 13, 14 years later when most of us haven't seen each other for that time?

Have you forgiven John Squire for quitting the band by phone?

It's all way in the past. He made a big mistake and he probably knows that. I don't think he needs me to rub his nose into the dirt. He probably thought, "I'll go and form this band, the Seahorses, and go around the world and everyone will love us and say what a genius I am." He didn't care what happened to me. I put my head down and got on with it and I'm still making music.

After the band split up, there was a break before you brought out your solo stuff. What kind of a time was that for you?

It was hard. I was skint and I had to move back to my mum and dad's house, back into the room I shared with my brother when I was a kid. I kept getting people on the streets telling me that they loved me: it didn't mean anything to me because I was still borrowing tenners off my pensioner father to go and get some chicken.

What's your best Roses memory?

Going to Japan for the first time. We'd done five years on the dole and then eight or nine months later we were in Tokyo having kids going crazy to the tunes we'd been working on. It was an unbelievable feeling.

And the worst?

Walking into John's [Squire] room and seeing him with another delivery of cocaine in a big pile on his table. It's 11 in the morning and he's snorting lines of cocaine and I'm thinking, "Shit, is that what we are now? Do you have to take coke at 11 in the morning just so that you can come up with a guitar line? I thought we were against all that. I thought we were the real article. If he could have seen himself when he was 15, doing that, he'd have been horrified.

You have this image of being a big druggie.

Because of my cheekbones, people think I'm a crackhead. When the Roses first came out, the early reviews used to call me simian. I had to look that up at the time. Then they used to call me androgenous. Then somewhere down the line, through all the Madchester thing, it became, "He's a crackhead." I've never even tried crack, I've never taken heroin. I didn't start smoking weed until I was 22.

You've got this whole image that goes with your swagger, but you're actually quite gentle.

Everyone in Manchester walks like that. I am gentle. I think nearly everyone that makes music is sensitive – I don't care how hard they pretend they are. I met Johnny Rotten last year and he's nothing like his public persona. I know Liam [Gallagher] to be like that as well. He's a really sensitive guy.

Tony Wilson said Liam Gallagher learned everything from you.

Liam told me that himself. He was 16 when he came to see me live and he said that's what set him on his path.

What do you think about Oasis's split?

They've had a hard life, the Oasis brothers. They've done really well to be semi-normal. It's always sad when your dirty linen is brought out in public. You'll never find a Manchester band slagging off another Manchester band, but within each Manchester band, people will rip each other apart; Mondays, Smiths, New Order, Roses, Oasis. No one will slag each other off, but inside the band, they'll rip each other to death.

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