Ian Brown and Bobby Gillespie remembered their late friend and bandmate Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield at his funeral on Monday.
The bassist, who played in the Stone Roses and Primal Scream, died on 20 November at the age of 63 due to respiratory issues caused by long-standing emphysema.
Mounfield’s funeral service was held at Manchester Cathedral in England on Monday, and many of the biggest names from the English rock scene turned out to pay their respects.
The Stone Roses frontman Brown told those gathering outside the cathedral, “We will celebrate his life like the beautiful human being that he was – he’s a brother to me.”
During the service, he reportedly told the congregation that a gold statue of Mani should be erected in Manchester in his memory.
“Mani was like a brother to me, a musical comrade. Beautiful soul and spirit. Mani was able to laugh his way through any darkness. He was the life and soul of any room he was in,” he praised, according to BBC News.
Primal Scream frontman Gillespie said during his speech that Mounfield will “always live forever” in his mind.
“Mani’s warm and welcoming manner, treating me like an equal, made me feel like a million dollars and I’ll never forget that,” he continued. “No one was too important to escape his laser eye ability to cut the pretentious and self-important down to size, myself included… His ability to make laughter out of any situation was our great value wherever we were in the world.”
After the service, Brown and Gillespie carried Mounfield’s coffin out of the cathedral along with Stone Roses drummer Alan ‘Reni’ Wren and guitarist John Squire and Oasis star Liam Gallagher.
His unique coffin was covered in the same artwork as the Stone Roses’ 1989 self-titled album.
Other celebrity mourners included David Beckham and Gary Neville, who used to play for Mounfield’s favourite football club Manchester United, as well as The Jam’s Paul Weller, Happy Mondays star Bez, Joy Division’s Peter Hook, the Charlatans rocker Tim Burgess, and Oasis guitarist Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs.
