Gig review: Beady Eye, Glasgow Barrowland

Liam Gallagher may have lost out to older brother Noel in the post-Oasis sales stakes, but there was no gracious surrender at this show.

Beady Eye have found musical progression a hard nut to crack. Picture: PA

Beady Eye - Glasgow Barrowland

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“Come on… it’s on,” is the sort of fighting talk the fans have come to expect from the pugnacious Beady Eye frontman; here those words formed appropriate hooklines in Flick of the Finger, a meaty opening gambit which was greeted fondly with a shower of lager and followed swiftly and seamlessly with the driving Face the Crowd and Four Letter Word.

Had Beady Eye more of that kind of fuel in their tank, they might not be regarded as a next best option to their parent band. But having shot out the blocks with such unapologetic belligerence, they soon foundered on would-be psychedelic jam The Second Bite of the Apple and navel-gazing mantra Soul Love.

Much of the first album has been jettisoned from the set to make way for the allegedly more experimental material on follow-up BE, yet all these awkward moments demonstrated was that Beady Eye have found musical progression a hard nut to crack.

Surely the fans were here for the musical regression anyway? To everyone’s relief, the moratorium on Oasis songs has now been lifted, allowing Gallagher to leave the high notes on the chorus of Live Forever to the crowd. Cigarettes and Alcohol was more meat-and-potatoes but stodgily satisfying with it, while their cover of Gimme Shelter set a bittersweet benchmark they cannot reach with their own songs.