Travis' Fran Healy On How He Once Made Liam Gallagher Cry

Travis frontman Fran Healy has talked about how he once made Liam Gallagher cry.

Travis were performing at London’s Royal Festival Hall yesterday, when Fran Healy spoke how their track 'Luv' once brought Liam to tears while they were on the road in the ’90s.

“We supported Oasis on the ‘Be Here Now’ Tour in 1997, and it was like supporting The Rolling Stones they were so big back then,” Healy told the crowd, introducing their track ‘Luv’.

“I was walking backstage and Liam Gallagher was sat there in his round shades and he goes, ‘You come here’. So I went over and he goes, ‘Play me a song’. I was really nervous and I just picked up my guitar and started playing this next song. I couldn’t even look at him I was so nervous. When I finished playing the song I looked up and there were tears streaming down his face.”

Noel Gallagher On "Transatlantic Pseudo-American Bullshit" That Dominates The Charts

Noel Gallagher has spoken about the current state of pop music and how the charts are dominated by "transatlantic pseudo-American bullshit".

He told the Sunday Times “The charts are still dominated by transatlantic pseudo-American bullshit, put a rap in and pop chorus on it. Email it to someone in Mogadishu to put some maracas over it. Make loads of money.”

He added “I grew up in the golden age of pop, late 1970s, early 1980s. Nobody talked about lyrics. You listened. You danced. It affected your life. Who cares what it’s about?”

When asked "when did that change?" he replied “Around Britpop, when everybody wanted to be considered ‘an artist’. When Travis and Coldplay came and it was all introverted, why-does-it- always-rain-on-me? It’s not just raining on you. It’s raining on everyone. I’d rather write a song about the umbrella, not the f****** rain. Look at everybody’s first Britpop album, Oasis’s. Blur’s. Pulp’s. Raging joy.”

When asked "but wasn’t the angst that came after that a reaction to the excesses?" he replied “I suppose it did get darker when drugs took over, yeah. And then you end up with the Libertines — lads with no teeth and their grandads’ hats.”

Review: Noel Gallagher At The Royal Albert Hall

Noel Gallagher is the father of modern Brit rock; the mixture of songwriting style, soundscape and appeal for broad audiences he pursued with Oasis influenced the scene that later gave birth to Coldplay, Arctic Monkeys, The Killers (born in the US, bred in the UK), The Verve, Travis and Stereophonics, who all consequently influenced a newer generation. In the 90s Oasis took the rock sceptre, stolen by Nirvana, and brought it back to England.

Although the Manchester band broke up in 2009, they still cast a shadow over Noel Gallagher’s successful solo career, which everybody respects but also secretly believes to be a filler until he reunites with his brother.

“This one is dedicate to all the Oasis fans,” he says before beginning to play the melancholic uptempo You Know We Can’t Go Back – a clear message to his fans.

However, the concert began way before that, because Noel Gallagher wasn’t only the headliner tonight but also the support act, which he played in an acoustic version with his right-hand man (and former Oasis guitarist) Gem Archer.

Between the two sets, Gallagher played numerous hits from the band and his two solo albums. Highlights of the night are Slide Away (acoustic), Lock All the Doors, Whatever and If I Had a Gun. This year what used to be a fan favourite, Half the World Away, cleverly utlised by John Lewis for their Christmas advert, is now a charting hit that everyone sings along. “I leave you with this. Merry fucking Christmas.”

In a sold-out Royal Albert Hall, stage for his pre-Christmas show ahead of the 2016 tour, the encore serves as a third act.

“It’s been an absolutely dream-come-true to play with myself tonight. A privilege, a honour. Give it it up to the support anyway, they were fucking brilliant,” he jokes with his trademark humour. The Masterplan opens the finale which is a tight sequence of hits: AKA…What a Life and the timeless masterpiece Don’t Look Back in Anger.

Verdict:  *****

Source: www.theupcoming.co.uk

Oasis Dominate Vinyl Sales Chart

Official Charts Company release list of big sellers from the fallow years of vinyl.

Considering that figures for UK vinyl sales in 2013 have reached a reported 12 year high, it’s not altogether surprising that all but two of the 20 biggest selling records of the last two decades listed by the Official Charts Company and NME were released in the preceding 8 years.

Leading the way with first and second place are Oasis, whose What’s The Story Morning Glory? pips Definitely Maybe to the top spot, with Portishead’s Dummy taking the final podium place. Although The Beatles also figure strongly, the list is a pretty succinct document of the more adventurous end of the mid-90′s mainstream, dominated as it is by Brit pop (Oasis, Blur, Pulp) and its Mod and Madchester fore-runners (Paul Weller, Stone Roses), Bristolian trip hop (Massive Attack, Portishead) and The Prodigy.

While it is no surprise to see Radiohead’s The King Of Limbs sneak into the chart as the only LP released post-2001, the next most recent entrant is Travis, whose The Invisible Band peaks at a heady forth spot. (via NME)

Here’s the full list:

1. Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? 1995)
2. Oasis – Definitely Maybe (1994)
3. Portishead – Dummy (1994)
4. Travis – The Invisible Band (2001)
5. Radiohead – The King Of Limbs (2011)
6. Leftfield – Leftism (1995)
7. The Beatles – Live At The BBC (1994)
8. Massive Atack vs. Mad Professor – Protection/No Protection (1995)
9. Queen – Made In Heaven (1995)
10. The Prodigy – Fat Of The Land (1997)
11. Paul Weller – Stanley Road (1995)
12. The Stone Roses – Second Coming (1994)
13. Blur – Parklife (1994)
14. Nirvana – MTV Unplugged In New York (1994)
15. The Prodigy – Music For The Jilted Generation (1994)
16. Neil Young – Harvest (1972)
17. Pulp – Different Class (1995)
18. Oasis – Be Here Now (1997)
19. DJ Shadow – Endtroducing (1999)
20. The Beatles – Anthology 1 (1995)

Source: www.thevinylfactory.com