Oh Gallagher brothers, why can’t you just get along? It would be so nice for the rest of us that want this darn Oasis reunion to happen. Don’t get me wrong, you’re both equally great on your own, but together? Legendary.
The principle of synergy is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Well, it proved itself last night when Noel Gallagher played the Fox theater in Oakland as well as a few months back when his brother played the Warfield (read my review here). Both shows were equally solid for their own reasons but let’s face it, the crowd reaction was strongest when each brother pulled out selections from the Oasis catalog.
In the case of Noel yesterday, he performed six. “Little by Little,” “The Importance of Being Idle,” “Half the World Away,” “Wonderwall,” “Go Let It Out,” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” What happened to “Champagne Supernova” and “Supersonic”? Who can blame him I guess, it’s true that those songs have been played to death and in the case of Noel at least, he’s written some pretty amazing content since.
On the menu for the evening were some of my favorite songs like “It’s a Beautiful World,” “Riverman”, “In the Heat of the Moment,” and “If I Had a Gun.” All were performed flawlessly and with that cool effortless swagger that the British icon is famous for. In between the tunes, we were treated to Noel’s biting British wit that we’ve all been accustomed to. As an example, midway through the show, he asked the hipster San Francisco audience why they were all sporting beards and wearing the same glasses. “Are you all in some kind of a gang or something?” he said. The audience laughed in acknowledgment of the all too familiar situation at hand.
But the pinnacle of the night was the little girl in the front row named Ella that was holding up a sign that read, “Liam brought me onstage, will you?” A comical exchange resulted from it where Noel asked her why Liam brought her onstage. “To introduce a song,” she answered. And in true Noel fashion, he jumped on the opportunity to throw a friendly little jab at his older brother, “Was it one of my songs?” The crowd loved it as it brought back memories of those older days when many of us were glued to our television sets watching MTV and having a chuckle at the notorious fights between the boys of Oasis.
But in the end, all we are left with are those memories. And yes, I still have hope that these two will get back together. If Guns n Roses could do it, why can’t they? The world needs an Oasis reunion at this point. Noel has said in past interviews that Rock n Roll is a dying art form. So what better way to spend those golden years of your career, Noel, than to bring it back to life?
Photos by Louis Raphael Photography
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