John Squire + Paloalto

After the split of John Squire’s post-Stone-Roses band, The Seahorses, he has been buried away in his country house in the North of England working on his solo album, Time Changes Everything. This time he takes the vocals himself — which is something of a surprise to those who have followed him in the past — but he’s decided that he’d “had enough of trying to break in singers and have my ideas refracted through somebody else.” When he formed The Seahorses, he declined the opportunity to sing, preferring instead to hire Chris Helme — a busker he stumbled across one afternoon and liked the sound of. When asked why he wasn’t fronting the band himself, he claimed it was because his own voice sounded like “a pet shop burning down.” Ouch. For those who have heard Time Changes Everything prior to tonight, they will have already heard that his own assessment of his voice is somewhat harsh, but Thom Yorke has little to worry about all the same. Vocal competition clearly doesn’t bother Squire as supporting him tonight are Paoloalto, a band with a singer who really could give Thom Yorke a run for his piles of money. Four valley-boys from LA, who look like they’ve just stumbled out of a Vegas in the late 1970s, but make a sound as big and wondrous as the desert that surrounds it. Far warmer and lusher than Coldplay — with whom they have been compared to — and they are certainly no wet blankets either. It’s surely just a matter of time before Paloalto are headlining venues like this. For Squire, the 2,000 capacity Shepherd’s Bush Empire is the perfect size, and while the support band were winning over new fans, Squire was clearly intent on pleasing those who have followed him for some time. Yes, inevitably the crowd is made up of “Madchester” refugees in tatty old Stone Roses T-shirts, but there are also people here who never had the chance to see the Roses live and word has been spreading that Squire would play highlights from his past as well. Indeed, he opened with “Driving South” and the “Made of Stone”, the former sounding like the perfect Devil-at-the-crossroads squall for his voice (which does sound a lot better live than on record). Part Bob Dylan drawl and occasionally like Peter Garrett from Aussie band Midnight Oil, but for these songs it’s not a bad thing. After all, Ian Brown once sung these y’know and Squire has more than enough persona to pull them off with some style. Predictably, the response wasn’t as great for his own songs, although “Time Changes Everything” and “Joe Louis” did sound fine and the addition of Hammond organ beefed them up live. Ironically, when heard in juxtaposition, much of the new material that Squire plays doesn’t sound a million miles from tracks off The Second Coming — notably “Tightrope” and “How Do You Sleep”, which also get the full treatment here tonight, sounding as good as they ever did. It might be worth noting that Squire did sing backing vocals on the original version of “Tightrope”, so he’s no stranger to singing it; recently, however, he claimed that he “spent too long trying to be a better guitar player ” during his days in the Roses. He added that he “should have spent more time writing songs. It’s far too masturbatory, sitting there with a guitar in your thirties.” Not easy to get away from when you’re already the fret-wank fantasy for a thousand bedroom air-guitarists, but he seems to be making up for lost time now. While most loved the six Stone Roses songs played here, some may have felt it showed a lack of confidence in his new material. Still, the fact remains that he did write much of the music that made The Stone Roses one of the best bands to come out of Britain in the last 20 years. If you’d written “Fools Gold” wouldn’t you want to play it live to 2,000 people, all of whom you knew were going to go (top) bananas? He did. And it is unlikely that it’s ever been played better on stage. The spotlight on him, he looked like the same skinny kid with the same mop top from all those years ago, but now he just seemed happier. No longer confining himself to occasionally rocking on his heels to show he’s enjoying it, Squire was leading the crowd from centre stage waving the famous Gibson Les Paul gold top about like a magic wand. His final song is a cover of The Clash’s “I’m So Bored of the USA”, which he dedicates to the late Joe Strummer. The first gig Squire went to was The Clash at Manchester Apollo in 1977 and he the followed the band around the country on the London Calling tour. It was the kind of devotion that he would later be the recipient of himself, as hoards of people followed his band from gig to gig. Fully aware that his weighty legacy means anything new he releases is going to be held up to scrutiny, John Squire appears more than happy to let that happen. He does not to frown on his past, but instead revels in it.