Music
Liam Gallagher
Barrowland, Glasgow
Jonathan Geddes
three stars
THE posture hasn’t changed, nor the voice or even the walk-on music. When Liam Gallagher strode onstage to F***** In The Bushes and immediately launched into Rock N’ Roll Star, greeted with football terrace approval from a crowd warmed up by the world’s most predictable DJ set (yes, the Stone Roses featured), it was possible to go back to when Oasis ruled the world.
The swagger and cheek was still there, including a jibe about Scotland being fortunate in Saturday’s football and a claim that Leigh Griffiths was "almost cool as me". Yet another line, asking fans to cheer new material even if they didn’t like it, maybe suggested unease. This is Gallagher’s first tour under his own name, with post Oasis band Beady Eye relegated to the Room 101 of music history, offering zero songs to the setlist.
Someone should give Gallagher advice on managing that setlist. Old Oasis numbers tended to arrive as double-headers, carried by both his vocal, still a confrontational roar, and a crowd in rowdy, fist-pumping thrall to them, from a spiky Morning Glory to a thunderous D’You Know What I Mean? and truly jubilant Slide Away.
Yet this meant the new songs arrived in two big blocks. You could tell when they were being played, because mobile phones in the crowd were used for texting rather than filming, and the sweaty crush eased considerably. Not all of them deserved that. Greedy Soul was an enjoyably fast and rhythmic rocker and I Get By sharp pop-rock.
The rest, however, came across like Oasis imitations, and we’re reaching photocopies of photocopies of photocopies at this stage, unable to match those originals. Perhaps the studio versions will have more flair, but there was a sluggish acoustic-led number in Bold, mild psychedelia with Paper Crown, and one that already seems earmarked for a blustery album finale in Universal Gleam, desperate to be epic.
It had nowhere near the power of the unaccompanied Live Forever that provided an emotive encore. Gallagher’s still a big presence, but he needs new songs to match it.
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