Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds are, well, flying high.
The group played a sold out show at London's O2 Arena last night, toasting the number one success of second album 'Chasing Yesterday'.
Now the songwriter has confirmed plans for an extremely intimate show in South East London. Noel Gallagher will perform in front of a handful of fans for Absolute Radio, with tickets being given away free on the station.
Taking place on March 27th, you can find full information HERE.
Noel Gallagher will be straight back onstage the following evening (March 28th) performing a special set at the Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Catch Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds at Latitude, T In The Park and more this summer.
Noel Gallagher pointed out that High Flying Birds is a band, not a solo project. No one really believed him.
While his kid brother’s band Beady Eye recently called it a day, Noel Gallagher’s just scored the fastest-selling album of the year so far. For the blokeish crowd at the O2, all must have seemed right with the world: a Gallagher on top of the charts ahead of sensitive boys Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran. He couldn’t resist an unsubtle reference to “my f***ing No 1 album”, then pointed out that Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds is a band, not a solo project. No one really believed him.
Yet there was no doubting the appeal of his post-Oasis songs. Everybody’s on the Run was the first anthem, while Lock All the Doors sounded like the Mancunians in their pomp.
Gallagher got excited by some argy-bargy down the front (“excellent behaviour”), although calm was soon restored by the mellow Riverman, featuring a saxophone solo of which Liam Gallagher would surely not approve. His big brother can get away with such experimental flourishes if he keeps writing stand-out tunes like the multi-layered Ballad of the Mighty I.
Perhaps Champagne Supernova would have benefited from Liam’s swagger, though Noel’s vocal was lifted by the Crouch End Festival Chorus.
During Don’t Look Back in Anger the audience sang along with the choir, while The Masterplan (Wonderwall’s b-side) made for a life-affirming finale. Oasis may be missed but Noel Gallagher offers the best of both worlds.
Tonight's setlist and from yesterdays Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds concert in London.
Do The Damage
Stranded On The Wrong Beach
Everybody's On The Run
Fade Away
In The Heat Of The Moment
Lock All The Doors
Riverman
The Death Of You And Me
You Know We Can't Go Back
Champagne Supernova
The Ballad Of The Mighty I
Dream On
The Dying Of The Light
The Mexican
AKA... Broken Arrow
Digsy's Dinner
If I Had A Gun
Don't Look Back In Anger
AKA... What A Life!
The Masterplan
Check out the current collection and offers from Pretty Green here
For this year's Record Store Day a limited edition 12" vinyl of two previously unreleased mixes of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds 'In The Heat Of The Moment' will be released.
You can always tell when a Noel Gallagher record is doing the rounds.
NME’s website is chock-full of ‘stories’ hung on individual quotes from an interview done weeks ago, comment sections are brimming with “hasn’t released anything good since ‘What’s The Story’” and one of music’s fiercest tongues is busy lashing anybody within hearing distance.
Somewhere in the middle of it all tends to lie a bit of music the chart topping “Chasing Yesterday” in this case; backed by a tour a sell out arena one in this case.
I watched one of Noel’s first solo gigs, back in 2011 at the Apollo. The awkwardness was tangible. Content for almost two decades to orchestrate proceedings from the wings while his brother’s ego bathed in the adulation, he was thrust into the spotlight, asked to play the unfamiliar role of frontman. On Monday night at Manchester Arena, he showed it is a role he is becoming increasingly familiar with minus tambourines on heads.
A master of the B-side, “Do The Damage” is given the job of opener backed up by “(Stranded On) The Wrong Beach” and “Everybody’s On The Run” the latter eliciting the kind of mass sing-along you’d expect from an Oasis gig.
Indeed, Oasis classic “Fade Away” does get the same treatment and some, the entire arena matching Noel word for word (everybody that is except the young couple next to me who judging from their expressions throughout must be huge Liam fans). The guy even nipped out during “Champagne Supernova”. Topless barmaids giving out free beer wouldn’t have had me budging from my spot at that point...at least not until after the solo.
The 20-song setlist is split evenly between Noel’s solo records and Oasis, “In The Heat Of The Moment” the first track from his latest record to get an airing, and one that live really jumps up a notch. It’s quickly followed by the thundering Definitely Maybe-era cast off “Lock All The Doors” and “Riverman”.
As news of Man United’s 2-1 FA Cup defeat to Arsenal filtered through, a gleeful Noel dedicated “Dream On” to the United squad, following it up with the excellent “The Dying of the Light”.
“If I had a Gun” comes sandwiched in between “Digsy’s Dinner” and “AKA What A Life”, proof that even nearly two decades on, Gallagher can still pen a belting stomper.
If the chorus of encore curtain raiser “Don’t Look Back In Anger” doesn’t have every single one of your hairs stood on end you’ve either got no hair or you’re deaf.
And so “how do you top that?” asks Noel. Johnny Marr, that’s how. The former Smiths guitarist brought out to lend a live hand on his and Noel’s “Ballad Of The Mighty I” collaboration.
How do you top that? Not sure you can but “The Masterplan” comes pretty darn close.
Should Oasis reform? God yes. Should it be before another Noel Gallagher record? Definitely not.
Ahead of his O2 gig tonight, Noel tells XFM that he won't be selling bags of air from his gig like the controversial rapper.
Bags of air, reportedly collected at Kanye West tours, have flooded online auction sites in recent days.
But after joking that it was undoubtedly "hot air", Noel Gallagher has told XFM he won't be following in the footsteps of the rapper.
The gag began when one eBay user posted a joke ad for a bag of air from a Kanye West tour. Although the site took the ad down, more copycat ads have taken its place in recent days.
Noel was joined onstage by Johnny Marr at his Manchester Arena gig last night, with a setlist that included Oasis tracks Champagne Supernova, Don't Look Back In Anger and The Masterplan. Noel plays London's O2 tonight.
Tonight's setlist and from yesterdays Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds concert in Manchester.
Do The Damage
Stranded On The Wrong Beach
Everybody's On The Run
Fade Away
In The Heat Of The Moment
Lock All The Doors
Riverman
The Death Of You And Me
You Know We Can't Go Back
Champagne Supernova
Dream On
The Dying Of The Light
The Mexican
AKA... Broken Arrow
Digsy's Dinner
If I Had A Gun
AKA... What A Life!
Don't Look Back In Anger
The Ballad Of The Mighty I (With Johnny Marr)
The Masterplan
Check out the current collection and offers from Pretty Green here
Many fans will no doubt single out Johnny Marr's appearance on stage alongside Noel Gallagher as the highlight of their night at Manchester arena.
But for anyone who has followed the careers of Oasis - and subsequently Noel - there can be few better live music spectacles than The Masterplan being performed to a hometown crowd.
The title track to an album of B sides good enough to rival anything Oasis or either of the Gallagher brothers have ever released was what the girl stood next to me in the beer queue was looking forward to most.
Privately, I was too. And it didn't disappoint.
I know it is terribly bad form to start a review with the last song of the encore but it was without doubt the highlight, particularly the electric guitar solo in the middle of it.
And therein lies part of the problem for Noel. He has created such a rod for his own back with his back catalogue, it is hard for anything to top it.
But he certainly gives it a good go and a packed Manchester Arena suggested his popularity is far from fading.
Much of the build up was dominated by rumours brother Liam was set to attend the gig and, judging by the amount of pretty green (Liam's fashion label) clobber on show, it seemed many fans had believed the hype. But it turned out to be just that.
When Noel and his High Flying Birds entered the stage, they kicked things off with (Stranded on) the Wrong Beach, from their self-named first album.
I have to begrudgingly admit, it was a little tame.
That was followed by everybody's on the run, a single from the same record.
It took the first Oasis song to really get us going and that was B-side Fade Away. In the background, slides of someone's childhood played as the lyrics 'while we're living, the dreams we had as children fade away' we're sung by Noel and the crowd.
It would be nice to believe they were his, but it didn't seem likely.
Our first taste of new album Chasing Yesterday came in the form of In The Heat of the Moment but it wasn't until songs later we heard the one I had been eagerly awaiting - Riverman.
If you'd closed your eyes during the intro, you'd have been forgiven for thinking Wonderwall was about to be unleashed.
But the true identity of the Weller-esque track was soon revealed and you got the feeling Noel knew it was his best work of late, with his face scrunching as he sang the words "find me the girl who electrifies the storm".
Along the way, we heard The Death of You and Me, from album one, and The Mexican, from NGHFB's latest offering.
The latter when performed live - as it does on the album itself - illustrated Noel's definite lurch away from Oasis towards his own, individual sound
And would we ever have seen Noel doing a 360 spin during a song without his brother looking on and taking the proverbial? Well, we did last night.