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

Here’s a video I happened upon of Keane covering Oasis’ Cast No Shadow from the album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory. Very cool video and good pick of a song to cover.

Cast No Shadow – V Festival from keaneofficial on Vimeo.

News broke this afternoon that Oasis’ leader and chief songwriter Noel Gallagher has left the band. My first inclination upon hearing the news is that this has all happened before. By my count Liam has left the band at least once, and Noel on 2 different occasions. Oasis has long been a volatile mix and frequent target of rumoured breakups. It just goes with the territory.

Although it is pretty early at this point, it does seem like this could be the end. I’ve heard the rumours of how Liam and Noel hadn’t been on speaking terms for almost a year, and at this point it seems there is some credence to those rumours. But this time it seems a little different. Here’s the quote from Noel as posted on their official website.

“It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”

Maybe it’s just the fact that Oasis finally started leveraging social media and properly utilizing their website since their last dust up, but there seems to be some finality to a statement like this. Previously Noel just stormed off the tour and wanted to get away from things. Now we’re getting official postings on their website 2 hours after the fact.

I was out at ribfest in Guelph when this happened and had the news relayed to me by a couple friends who knew my affinity for Oasis. Aside from my first thought about this having happened before, I’m almost happy about it. Happy you say? That seems pretty odd given I’m probably one of the bigger Oasis fans you’ll ever meet. Hell I used to run the website OasisCentral.com I was that big of a fan. Why I say happy is that it’s something that is almost long overdue. When bands are around for a long time people tend to take them for granted as you start to see diminishing returns with regards to album quality. Sure I’ve enjoyed the last 3 or 4 albums of material they’ve put out, but at some point the general public just loses interest and the band is left essentially making music for the diehards. It isn’t until a band breaks up that people tend to eulogize and celebrate a bands past material.

The main reason I’m happy about Oasis splitting is the fact that Noel has long wanted to put out solo albums(in 2007, in 2008) but had been threatened by Liam that it would lead to the dissolution of the band. Over the years there have been constant rumours of Noel having solo material at the ready, but having shelved it so as to not to rock the boat and piss off Liam. Liam has long been opposed to the band experimenting with new musical directions and trends, wanting to stick with a straight ahead rock sound that made the band famous. To me this seems like it could just be a new day dawning for Oasis and its fans. Noel is finally free to let loose years of solo material. Liam has become a songwriter in his own right and can now do his own thing, should he choose. And Andy and Gem are both talented performers and songwriters as well and can either be involved in new projects or reunite with their old bands.

And the reality of music in this day and age is, if a band doesn’t break up, how can they do a big money reunion tour?