“Put your fucking phone away and live in the moment,” says Noel Gallagher to a fan in the front row who seemed to be bootlegging the entire show at the Warfield last week.
Gallagher is a rare breed of singer-songwriter. Having represented the better half of Oasis for more than a decade, he continues to deliver and build upon his legacy with his solo project The High Flying Birds. How important is this man to rock ‘n’ roll? Beatles’ producer George Martin described Gallagher as the “finest songwriter of his generation” and he recently won NME’s prestigious God Like Genius Award.
Gallagher has nothing left to prove in terms of his contributions to rock ‘n’ roll. So it’s enough to make a music fan ill reading some of the reviews for his latest record Chasing Yesterday. It’s difficult enough for a well written album review to shine through in a world taken over by peer-to-peer recommendations and user-generated reviews. It’s even worse when it’s written by a snarky over-opinionated critic who’s struggling to stay relevant. (By the way, the record has 74 five-star reviews on Amazon—and Pitchfork gave it a 5.9 which loosely translates to mediocre; not good, but not awful).
Chasing Yesterday is a solid record in every sense; brilliant lyrics, stunning musicianship, and a consistency that so many records lack today. Don’t knock this record until you’ve spent some time diving in to its stellar soundscapes with a proper turntable and headphones. The MP3 version, like many great albums, robs it of substance.
Gallagher spoke to Rolling Stone in a recent interview describing his mindset when recording the new record. “I’m loving the solitary aspect of being in the studio on my own,” he says. “I spent 20 years in a band making records by committee. I’m fucked if I’m going to do that now. I think Oasis was at its best when I was solely in charge, anyway.” I completely agree.
So what’s it like to be at a Noel Gallagher show? People are losing their shit left and right. They clearly get the fact that this is one of the greatest singer songwriters alive today amongst a bloated world of overindulged, self-entitled, annoying formulaic pop garbage.
As the lights came down and The High Flying Birds took to the stage you could feel the energy from the capacity crowd. Gallagher hasn’t been back in quite some time and San Francisco was so very thrilled to have him, they leapt out of their seats to the stage.
I would have been happy to hear nothing but High Flying Birds material for the entire evening, but I think that Gallagher gets it. He strategically peppered in a couple of Oasis fan favorites (“Champagne Supernova” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger”) along with two slightly more obscure numbers for the hard-core fans (“The Masterplan” and “Digsy’s Dinner”), and it worked beautifully.
Ninety minutes of epic rock ‘n’ roll music alongside Gallagher’s fiercely entertaining rants, quips, and one-liners make up for one of the best live shows on the planet today.
Check out hi res photos from the show in the gallery here.
