The Clone Roses' journey from the Phoenix to iconic venues

Filling places like Glasgow’s Barrowlands, Nottingham’s Rock City and Shepherd’s Bush Empire shows how far the band have come since their first gig at the now sadly late and lamented Phoenix pub in Canal Street.

But despite a quarter of a century of delivering classic The Stone Roses’ tunes, which has included selling out Spike Island with a record tribute act 15,000 strong crowd, the band remain as grounded as ever.

Fronted by Gavin Scott, with his brother Tony on guitar, Mike Bagshaw taking on Mani’s bass role and their third drummer Philip Bennett, the Clones have built a huge following.

Although Baggy had been in a couple of bands including Vernal Equinox and Lexington 125, lead singer Gav’s musical journey was quite different.

He explains: “I hadn’t done anything musically - I was just listening to stuff like Snoop Dogg and Def Leppard but after being shown the Roses’ Blackpool Live on VHS a few times, I thought it was incredible.

“When I sang along to Waterfall my brother said I sounded like lead singer Ian Brown and said we should start jamming some songs.

“So we got in touch with Baggy, who was the only bass player we knew, and Steve Birch the drummer and with my brother on guitar we rehearsed and something clicked.

“For that first gig at the Phoenix we put a poster in Kaleidoscope Records and in one or two other places, and people were queuing down the street on the night and it was just crazy.

“We must have been terrible that night but people came back for the songs.

“Ian Brown is famous for the money T-shirt but you couldn’t get that at the time so I got one made and on the night people were literally pointing, wondering where I had got it.

“We knew from that moment that the effort we've gone into for attention to detail was being recognised by people in the crowd.”

They honed their craft at places like Haydock No 1 and Moss Lane and West Park rugby clubs, but admitted to freezing a little on their jump to a first major gig supporting Clint Boon from Inspiral Carpets at Preston.

Bass player Baggy said: “You can only start a Roses set with I Wanna be Adored, but for some reason we started with She Bangs the Drum and I got the opening riff completely wrong because of the nerves.”

The big dates continued to come and in 2006 Kav from the Happy Mondays invited them open at Brixton Academy in front of 4,500 people with the Mondays, The Farm and Mani DJing on the bill.

Gavin said: “Nobody said a word all the way down there because we were all bricking it thinking ‘what are we doing on this?’ “It had been heavily promoted in the NME and on billboards and got our name out there.

“We were on at 7 o’clock and it was already packed and recall thinking ‘people have come to see us here’.

“I forgot the words in ‘I am the Resurrection’ and we played ‘I wanna be Adored’ at breakneck speed.

“That was a baptism of fire for us because it was like massive crowd. Don't think we played well, but we got through it and got a good reaction.”

Baggy agreed: “I was already bricking it when in between a couple of songs, I heard a whistle and Mani was stood behind me, laughing his head off.

“If I wasn't already nervous about playing the in front of nearly 5,000 people at the famous Brixton Academy, which I had live albums from at home, I then had Mani wolf whistling behind me.

“So it was quite surreal.”

And that was just the start, the big gigs and the events have grown in size, but Gavin is humble enough to accept that filling those iconic arenas is down to the pull of the Stone Roses music and the other bands they put on alongside them – not down to them as a band.

“We're putting on nights, and we are honest and humble enough to know that people are not necessarily coming to see The Clone Roses although we're on last, they're coming to see a great night of bands.

“They are coming to listen to the songs of the Stone Roses and if they think we're playing them well that is brilliant – but we are just the people on stage playing the songs, we are not the stars,” said Gavin.

It was a view echoed by bass player Baggy who spoke of his privilege at playing places like Barrowlands, Rock City and Shepherds Bush Empire.

He said: “I'm absolutely buzzing about having the opportunity to get on the stages at these iconic venues but I'm also very aware that these people aren't coming to watch Mike Bagshaw from St Helens, they're coming for the show.”

All the band members have regular jobs, and play their gigs at the weekend – something that also helps keep the band’s feet on the ground.

But Gavin told a tale from when the band played the Citadel in the noughties – when his day job was the operation’s manager at the St Helens venue.

“We played there on the Saturday night but on the Monday morning, after selling out our hometown gig after a great night, my first job was to brush up our fans’ cans that were strewn all over Waterloo Street and in the venue - so that doesn't bring you back down to earth I don’t know what will,” he said.

On Saturday The Clone Roses head down the road to a long sold-out gig at Academy in Liverpool for a night also featuring Definitely Mightbe, The James Experience and The Gerry Cinnamon Experience.