The Stone Roses looked like every boy I knew and filled me with Nordic pride | The music

TheNovember 1989. The Berlin Wall had just fallen, the House of Commons had just been televised and New Kids on the Block (NKOTB) ranked first. At school, my clbadmates were now crazy about the group. At the day outside of the uniform, one of them showed me that she had stitched a Marky Mark patch on her old Brosette jeans. I guess it was a time of great change.

This week, Top of the Pops was introduced by Jackie Brambles and Jenny Powell, an indomitable actress. Beside NKOTB's rendition of You Got It (the good stuff), there was music by Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville, Bobby Brown, Jeff Wayne, and Big Big band performances Fun, Fine Young Cannibals, Happy Mondays and Stone Roses.

It is always difficult to explain the place that Top of the Pops once occupied in the national psyche. It was television that was both simple and a door in the future. It is also difficult to explain the effect of this evening watching two Mancunian bands that seemed slightly disturbed and looked vaguely dirty, and that were as far away as possible from Big Fun. They played Hallelujah and Fool's Gold respectively and left the country in a state of confusion.

I had just turned 12 and I had experienced this feeling only once before – two years ago, dancing at La Bamba at the community club disco, when I was there. Saw a group of half-drunk teenagers wearing Smiths t-shirts with flowers in their back pockets. At that time, I realized that Los Lobos was not really what it was.

Likewise, it was not that I felt an immediate love for Fool's Gold or its creators, even if it seemed fascinating, subversive and strange. On the contrary, what I felt was a sense of kinship. The accent in Ian Brown's voice was pleasantly familiar in its Nordic character, as was the group itself, under the lights of the studio, looking pale and disillusioned and looking undeniably problematic.

Madchester was already a cultural force. The previous weekend, the Stone Roses were in the limelight at the Alexandra Palace. The same week, the band had hit home during a live concert on BBC Two's The Late Show. to fill the sudden lack of programming. Back home in Wigan, we felt it more concretely. The jeans had become wider, the hair cut more into a ball. People walked differently, with a flexible, kneeling shuffle moving at their own pace, which seemed to take up more space.

Madchester has created a stimulating backdrop for those of us growing up in the northwest. The fact that his heroes are not popstars or smashing American rockers, but rather all the boys you've known, reinforces the feeling of closeness. I remember watching a local news report – vox with teens from the north, an interview with jeans founder Joe Bloggs, a playful exploration of the fluffy scene – and feeling a new allegiance to my lugubrious and neglected side from Great Britain.

It seemed then that half of the world was obsessed with Manchester. Visitors came from afar to shop at the Affleck Palace and queue up at the Haçienda. It was not the first time that the city's music attracted attention, of course – the Smiths, the Fall, Joy Division and New Order were invoking all the tourists – although this time they seemed to consume more. "What is there in this deeply unpleasant city that has fed so much good music?", Asked MTV of a report on Madchester. Whatever it may be – rain, post-industrial boredom, drugs, lines of force – those of us who live in the northwest felt a new pride in our lack of beauty.

I was young when I started going to pubs and discos and although some years have already pbaded since the beginning of the Stone Roses, the group was still a mainstay on the dancefloors and jukeboxes of the region. The opening notes of I am the resurrection or the waterfall always brought the kidnapping into the room. The dance, up close, looked like a rainman ritual amplified by trousers; by far, it was beautiful, writhed, beamed. "Children in a frenzy," as Tony Wilson once said. "High level people, high level buzz, high level music, great atmosphere, no hostility, no unity. Unity, "told MTV a young fan of Madchester.

A few years ago, I found myself in Widnes, on the set of Spike Island, with the films Matt Whitecross and Chris Coghill, in the context of the infamous Stone Roses concert in May 1990, when the group played in front of a crowd of 27,000 people. unlikely corner of Cheshire. I stood in the icy rain and watched Elliott Tittensor, hand in hand with Emilia Clarke, as well as the extras who rushed into the room and I danced for I Wanna Be Adored, with mushroom hair and baggy trousers, golden faces of light. They shot the scene several times and the song was repeated. And as the rain turned to hail and my fingers froze, I stopped taking notes and thought about how the complex beauty of John Squire's guitar floated around his voice. hoarse Brown. I was wondering if the teenagers dancing in front of me could ever understand what the group meant for this part of the north, 23 years ago.

More recently, I spoke with writer and broadcaster Stuart Maconie about how the North's trust was manifested in its architecture. "I'm a big fan of this northern time that we often see in municipal buildings," he said. "You see it in a lot of Manchester Cottonopolis era architecture. A kind of brick braggart. "

It is an image that has remained faithful to me and that came back this week when I revisited the beginnings of Stone Roses, 30 years after its release. What I liked in this group, this time, this scene, is that it looked like these buildings: music that reflected the new power of a community. Civic music, unity, stone bluster.