I had the opportunity to see Noel Gallagher and his High Flying Birds at Massey Hall yesterday. Just wow. I’ve been to many an Oasis concert, to the point I’ve actually been bored with the show if I happened to see them twice on the same tour. Oasis has been pretty notorious for the fact they play the same show every night, but I have to say Noel’s gig felt quite fresh.  Sure there were a few Oasis classics smattered in with a healthy amount of B-Sides.  They seem to mesh pretty effortlessly with the tracks from his new album, which is a pretty big accomplishment.  This was the first solo Noel gig I’ve ever seen, and all I can say is the man just knows how to put on a show.

The band sounded very tight and Massey Hall was just an amazing venue to see this gig. I managed to get tickets 6th row, left centre which was pretty awesome. I didn’t bring my good camera, so the few shots I did take with my iPhone 4 were pretty blurry.  It just couldn’t cope with all the light on the stage.

I saw someone say about this album that if this were the debut album for a new artist people would be falling all over themselves to blog about how great it is.  But this being the notorious Noel Gallagher the accomplishment will probably go pretty much unnoticed by the world at large outside of the Oasis community.

I posted a few videos I found on YouTube of the gig from Saturday, where Noel played the same setlist at the Mod Club in Toronto as they seemed better quality than the ones I found of the Massey Hall gig.

Setlist

1. (It’s Good) To Be Free
2. Mucky Fingers
3. Everybody’s on the Run
4. Dream On
5. If I Had a Gun…
6. The Good Rebel
7. The Death of You and Me
8. Freaky Teeth
9. Wonderwall
10. Supersonic
11. (I Wanna Live in a Dream in My) Record Machine
12. AKA… What a Life!
13. Talk Tonight
14. Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks
15. AKA… Broken Arrow
16. Half The World Away
17. (Stranded On) The Wrong Beach
18. Encore:
19. Little By Little
20. The Importance of Being Idle
21. Don’t Look Back In Anger