The Ricoh Stadium was the venue for the latest leg of Oasis lengthy UK tour. It was at the request of support band The Enemy who hail from Coventry that this show be staged.
Nearly 35,000 people crammed in to witness a celebratory homecoming show from The Enemy, followed by a triumphant, but a little tiring Oasis performance.
The Enemy came onto a raptourous welcome but tossed away their two biggest hits Away From Here and Had Enough inside the first three tracks. This left the remainder of the show feeling somewhat pedestrian, but was punctuated by the beautiful Jane Ballad that Oasis would have been proud to have in their arsenal. Set closer It's Not Ok was powerful in uniting their home crowd, despite this the jury is out on whether they we will see the day when The Enemy are headlining these type of shows.
Oasis entered nearly an hour later to their now customary walk on track Fuckin in the Bushes, before swiftly charging into a slightly off key Rock 'n' Roll Star.
The early part of the show was full of the punkish songs to get the mosh heaving, Cigarettes and Alcohol and Roll With It sounding timeless as if the mid nineties had never slipped away. Although this segment of the show was the gig's peak it meant the remainder of the show was majoring on mass singalongs, albeit some beautiful moments especially Champagne Supernova and a noticeably euphoric Live Forever, but why not space these songs out around the mosh friendly ones?
I know there will be some people who think I am being pedantic but in my opinion it prevented the gig from being a great show to merely just a very fine one.
Liam Gallagher has never been the most demonstrative of frontmen, his mere presence and aura has generally led him to being described as the best frontman of his generation. Tonight he was in snarling mode admonishing the crowd for clapping saying "this is not a Simple Minds gig" and later on dedicating a song to the "real sky blues MCFC".
Oasis have always prided themselves on letting the music speak for itself and this goes a long way as no other band can generate so many people speaking in unison. However I think the time has come for Oasis to offer a bit more of a show, otherwise they could stagnate as a live force as the new music does not speak for itself.
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Good review, although I thought the show was amazing... I guess at an Oasis gig you expect two hours of mass singalongs and that's pretty much what it was, I loved it :) Particularly the acoustic version of Don't Look Back In Anger, it was the best part of the night!
ReplyDeleteI like the singalongs, Champagne Supernova was emotional but I still think some of the punkish stuff like Roll With It could have been saved until the end. Overall I enjoyed it though, but probably not as much as you and Angie.
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