Oasis Heaton Park review, 6.6.09

Can You Gig It?: Oasis @ Heaton Park, Manchester, 6.6.09

Scott Croly went to the second of Oasis’s Heaton Park gigs - the one where the power didn’t cut out. Could it wipe out the disappointment of the first night?

Only two nights earlier, Oasis had committed the cardinal sin: fucking up royally on home turf. OK, so the blame actually lay with the event’s organisers and their dodgy knock-off Cash Converters generator - but Manchester’s normally forgiving crowd had booed for 45 minutes, only eventually appeased by the promise of a refund.

And so, seemingly with a point to prove, The World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band™ took to Heaton Park’s unnecessarily grand stage for the second leg of their three-night hometown-showdown with little fanfare.

Forgoing the usual pre-match build up, they threw themselves into “Rock & Roll Star”, giving every coke-addled thirtysomething Manc in attendance his first proper hard-on since… well, Oasis’s last Manchester gig.

With a quick scan of the crowd, it was safe to say Lancashire’s babysitters would be quids in on the night – Oasis fans have all grown up and spawned little Liams, Noels, Sallies and (heaven forbid) Boneheads of their own. But the very same fans have had their loyalty rewarded over the years, with the band’s deliberate insistence to keep churning out the anthemic crowd-pleasers.

Not that Noel’s adage of ‘if they keep buying, don’t fix it’ is necessarily bad thing. While the last few albums could generously be described as ‘patchy’, a few flashes of brilliance certainly shee-iiine through - many of these moments were represented here during the show’s epic setlist.

Kinksy plodder “The Importance of Being Idle” and heartfelt hum-along “Songbird” easily stand up next to the old stuff; in fact if anything it’s some of the “classics” that feel extraneous tonight – “Roll With It”, anyone?

The state of Liam’s voice has been called into question over recent years (Glastonbury 2004’s performance drew unkind Mr Bean comparisons), but a bilious “My Big Mouth” and an impassioned “Slide Away” had the crowd shitting and moistening their pants in equal measures. I could almost swear I heard someone next to me use the words “better than Knebworth”.

The sound down the front was loud and punchy, but any further than halfway back and you could barely hear the band over the kebab van chatter. This was most likely due to a combination of the wind and a wish to avoid another blow-out, but you can’t help thinking those wanting to avoid the crush might have felt a little short-changed.

Then again, it’s probably fair to say that no-one goes to an outdoor Oasis gig like this to actually hear them play - most of songs sound identical to the records anyway - but to throw bottles of piss in the air, spill over-priced lager on their mates’ shoulders, and try to match Noel’s high bits in “Live Forever”.

But that’s the point, innit: escapism. Once every three years, anyone with fifty quid and a spare two hours can forget about the office/factory/milk round, and congregate in a field with 70,000 like-minded souls and their favourite band. You’ll struggle to find any other act with the power to make grown men weep with songs they hear on the radio every day.

After a customary encore of “I Am The Walrus”, it was all over. Umpteen thousand Mancs made their way back to the city centre on buses singing the very songs they’d just heard, and looking forward to watching the exact same gig in 2012.

And Oasis will continue to play the exact same gig - over and over again, until we get bored. Which, judging by tonight’s triumph, will be never.

[Photos: petefletch on Flickr]

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