Music review: Liam Gallagher, Glasgow Hydro

Even during this solo gig, the spectre of the combustible family rivalry that has boiled away since Oasis emerged 25 years ago wasn’t far from Liam Gallagher’s mind. “I want to take this opportunity to apologise for my little brother and the shit he said about your country,” he said to a very onside crowd, referencing his elder brother and former Oasis compatriot Noel’s jokey, Lewis Capaldi-baiting description of Scotland as a “third world country”. “Scotland’s the bollocks and so are her people.”

Liam Gallagher in concert In Glasgow as part of his UK tour in support of new album, Why Me? Why Not, 15 November 2019.

Liam Gallagher, Glasgow Hydro ***



The greatest irony here, of course, is that about 50 per cent of Liam’s live set comprised early Oasis material – from the hits Wonderwall and Roll With it to fan favourites Stand By Me and Acquiesce and the later Gas Panic – which was all written by Noel. Yet it’s difficult to see how anyone else might claim ownership of the definitive live performance of these songs, with the 47-year-old Liam’s voice as raw and insouciant as 25 ago.


With Oasis founder member Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs deployed on these classic songs (Gallagher: “to give it some bollocks”), the show was a nostalgia trip for older fans yet still bore a sense of pilgrimage for the young crowd in the heaving moshpit, who have made Gallagher’s two solo albums such successes. Ironically, these were the fans who responded most to recent hits like Shockwave and Wall of Glass (and The River, with Gallagher’s son Gene on second drums), while their parents’ generation went to the bar and imagined the glory days. David Pollock