I fucking love Yorkshire, I’m gonna buy a house here.
That’s one way of getting the crowd going. That was four songs in to Liam Gallagher’s sold out gig at the Fly DSA Arena but truth be told, the Oasis frontman had them in the palm of his hands from the get-go.
Swaggering on stage and launching into ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’, Liam’s voice sounded good, great even. Something that was missing during the later years of Oasis and the tumultuous Beady Eye era.
Liam’s solo tracks ‘Shockwave’ and ‘Wall of Glass’ get an early airing to a surprisingly receptive crowd, disproving the myth that going to see Liam Gallagher is a just nostalgia trip. Of course, hearing the likes of ‘Stand By Me’, ‘Roll With It’ and ‘Acquiesce’ stirs up emotion in the 10,000-strong crowd, but the new tracks stand up too. ‘Once’ from latest album Why Me Why Not sees the youth get up on the shoulders and belt it out, arms abreast – something that Liam himself noted. “It’s good to see the youth, man.”
Never one to miss an opportunity, he spent a couple of minutes chatting with the front row and came to the conclusion that brother Noel is indeed a ‘c*nt’. But when the mocking chants continued, Liam showed there’s still some love there. “Pack it in, we’re still brothers. He’s just a bit of a dick…”
The gig does lose momentum slightly in the middle due to a trio of lesser-known tracks from the new solo LP, but soon picks up again with a rip-roaring encore of ‘Supersonic’, ‘Champagne Supernova’ and ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ despite the technical issues.
During Liam’s wilderness years post-Beady Eye, Noel Gallagher (then flying high with his solo project), perhaps patronisingly suggest Liam should get out there under his own name, in his own spotlight. Whether Liam took that advice or made the decision on his own accord, it was an inspired one. The younger Gallagher sells more records and tickets now than his elder, and while Noel’s songwriting prowess can’t be denied, the star of the show has always been Liam.
