"Even at its best, Noel's voice can't hold a candle to Liam's throat at its worst. Whenever I hear a song like Don't Look Back in Anger or even Waiting for the Rapture, I think of what Liam could have done with them without Noel's ego in the way... Noel sings like a mule in season. I found Beady Eye's show to be much more enjoyable than Noel's--at least Beady Eye had a singer."
But we already talked about the voice. Here's about choosing to play Oasis songs, so that Liam called Noel "a parasite". As I said, I think it's not respectful to the ex members, to play them, 'cause they contributed to make them successful, singing and playing them on albums and all around the world for years.
It's completely ridiculous that on Noel's debut tour with his "High Flying Birds", he does just as many Oasis songs as he does new ones. People are paying to see these HFB, not half of Oasis. To play so many when he's on tour to promote his new album and this new era in his career, he loses a lot of respect.
Liam has the right idea, stick to the new solo album. Much more respect for Beady Eye for not playing Oasis songs for their 1st tour. Maybe someday they'll play a few of the fan favourites. Their album isn't long to play live (but Noel's show is just 20 minutes more), but at least what they did was play also a cover and some b-sides (Noel could never write "In a bubble with a bullet", too happy). We raise our hats to them for not taking the easy route. They have the balls, it was a far more braver choice from them not to start with playing Oasis tunes (the 23 Oasis songs they wrote, there are great ones as I'm outta time, Boys with the blues, Thank you for the good times, Turn up the sun, Songbird, etc., that even Noel said they're great).
Noel is a "scaredy cat" as Liam says, also in this, afraid of failing with the new stuff live. Noel wouldn't be selling out O2 and stuff like that if he wasn't playing Oasis tunes. As Liam says: Noel will never know if people come to see him or Oasis. Noel took the safe route, because he knew it would work. It's easy to rely on people's nostalgia instead of taking the brave route of letting your new band stand on its own two feet. And Noel's done such safe choices with the setlist as well, starts with 2 Oasis songs, encore is Oasis only tunes. His solo career songs somewhere there in the middle hidden between Oasis tunes. At least if Noel had built his set differently, by not letting Oasis tunes dominate the set (that is, be the starting songs and the encore) then at least it'd been a bit more brave and less easy way out.
Besides, he also said he wouldn't have played songs famous for Liam singing them... then he wouldn't play Wonderwall, Supersonic (Liam was quite famous for those) and It's good to be free.
When I go to see a band, I don't go to see them to rehash songs from decades ago from a band that no longer exists. It's a cheap cash in attempt, and if you were an artist, you'd understand that.
It's not so much about is anything being lost, it's more about principle, ability to move on, and about who has the guts to take steps that are not commercially the safest and surest.
Maybe I'm in a privileged position to say this, since I saw Oasis quite many times, but I do feel sort of sorry for people who get to hear Oasis tunes played live first time now on Noel solo tour, if they're thinking "at least I'll get to hear it now". It's just not the same. I wouldn't even use such a term as "next best thing to seeing Oasis". Oasis was something else.
I hope those who want to hear Oasis songs will one day in the future hear them played by Oasis.
The thing is with Beady Eye gigs I got this sense of things moving onwards and being different and all the excitement going with it. With Noel it's a weird mix of new things and odd nostalgia... culminating with the encore that just basically celebrated on Oasis' legacy, and it wasn't just a good thing, that.
Someone says: who wouldn't like to listen those classics? Me and other people, because it's almost 20 years we're listening to them. And Noel himself before the tour said: nobody wanted to hear Oasis anymore. So don't play them anymore.
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