Ewan Morrison: 'Frozen like some primordial mud-man and with clothes torn, I saw The Stone Roses'

NINETEEN ninety was the year of walls and fences coming down and going up again. Communism had just collapsed; former Soviet peoples were singing in the streets and the Berlin Wall was chunks of rubble sold to tourists. All of this, however, looked deeply depressing to those of us young folk who were signing on in the UK. Margaret Thatcher had just introduced the poll tax in Scotland and everyone I knew was penniless and hopeless.

There was some good news however: The Stone Roses were playing a big tented gig at Glasgow Green.

That first album was the only thing that got me and my mates bopping about with a sense of joy so I decided that even without money or ticket I'd go along and see the band even if it meant standing outside a security fence 800 yards away from the music.

That was what the reality turned out to be. As the Roses played What The World Is Waiting For inside, I paced around the vast perimeter fence and it looked dangerous and forbidding. Also there were hundreds of vagrant humanoids like me, all looking for some sneaky way in, and so many security guards patrolling that there was no way I could get close enough to see or hear anything much. I was just about to admit defeat and head home when I heard a "PSSST!"

A junkie-looking guy said he had a secret entrance. "Show ye for a fiver!"

I admitted I had only two quid and had no energy to haggle, but he was eager to accept. He would not, however, show me until I handed over the coppers. Then he led me round the fence to a place where four huge portable cabins stood. What was I supposed to do? Climb over the roofs?

"Naw," he said, "unnerneath." The fence had been torn away at the bases. I bent over, expecting any second that he might hit me over the head and steal my jacket/shoes/life. "Been in masel'… crackin' gig," he said. The portable cabins were raised on legs about eight inches from the ground and I glimpsed the tent tarpaulin at the far end of the 20ft space. It was like something from The Great Escape. "You actually crawled under this?" I asked, but he was gone.

I was two quid lighter and would have to go without food the next day, and Fool's Gold came on as if the lyrics were mocking me, so I thought "to hell with it", took a deep breath and lowered myself to the ground. It was a tight squeeze but by turning my head to the side and my feet likewise I inched under and was soon inside the flat, wide tunnel.

What could go wrong? Well how about: the gap got tighter; or my jacket got snagged on something, as did my hair; or that the grass turned to mud? Yes, these things happened.

Did I make it to see the gig? If you can describe staggering in after two hours of clawing for life by my fingernails, of fearing that even after the gig no-one would hear my screams and I could be left there stranded for days till they took the portable cabins away or until I had lost enough weight to crawl out; if you could describe arriving covered in mud with torn clothes for the last dying notes of the encore and standing frozen like some primordial mud-man as thousands pushed past me on their way out, as seeing The Stone Roses then yes, I saw The Stone Roses.