Out On Blue Six: Oasis

It was twenty five years ago today - the release of Definitely Maybe

That makes me feel old! But the music is of course timeless. Indeed, you could say that it will Live Forever

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Out On Blue Six: Oasis

Come the early '00s, I'd sort of given up on Oasis, It wasn't necessarily them I guess, it was probably me. If I'm honest I felt that Songbird was a pleasant enough ditty but was perhaps a little too on the nose with its Beatles influences. Listening again now, I think it's matured into something a little more in its own right down the years

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Out On Blue Six: Oasis

I love this song and I love this video - mixing Oasis with Lowry was genius...and the animator nailed Liam's Simian stroll!

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Out On Blue Six: Liam Gallagher

Here it is, Liam's new one, Wall of Glass

There are rumours going around that he'll heal the rift and reunite with his brother Noel for the big concert in Manchester on Sunday in aid of the families of the victims of the terror attack last week. That remains to be seen but for now at least we have this new solo stuff

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Out On Blue Six: Gorillaz

In the heady days of Britpop and the Blur/Oasis rivalry, the odds on Noel Gallagher working with Damon Albarn must have been pretty stratospherically high - wish I'd have had a punt on it anyway, I'd've been quids in now.

It was Paul Simonon's birthday bash in 2015 that finally brought them together and now, Noel performs on the track, We Got The Power, on the latest Gorillaz album, Humanz

However what was easy to predict is Liam's reaction to this unlikely love-in. The younger Gallagher brother took to Twitter to vent spleen;

"Now that dick out of Blur and the creepy 1 out of Oasis need to hang their heads in shame as it's no dancing in the streets as you were LG x"

and,

"That gobshite out of Blur might have turned Noel Gallagher into a massive girl but believe you me next time I see him there's gonna be war"

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Supersonic (2016)

"Noel has a lot of buttons, Liam has a lot of fingers; it’s that simple"

Supersonic might just be the funniest, most feelgood music documentary in recent years. And I mean, laugh out loud on several occasions funny - with one bit in which Liam discusses Scott McLeod's brief tenure with the band being met by gales of laughter  in the screening I was at, and rightly so. Directed by Mat Whitecross, a filmmaker with a rather diverse and under the radar career perhaps best defined with his Ian Dury biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and his rather sweet Spike Island both of which hint at his musical tastes, this documentary film doesn't set out to be the complete story of Oasis (which makes Peter Bradshaw's criticisms that the film stops in 1996 in his review for The Guardian rather stranger and completely redundant - what's up squinty Pete, didn't get the memo matey? Lazy, ignorant reviewing) instead it focuses simply on their meteoric two and a half year rise to super(sonic) stardom from 1993 to their landmark two-night Knebworth gigs in 1996 - a moment in time that Noel rightly called 'history' right there on the stage and expands upon it further in the film, arguing that such an event would be impossible in this digital, talent show world. Britpop really was the end of an era and Oasis rode high. As such, the film depicts a mostly positive relationship between Liam and Noel, with only a few tumultuous and often wildly hilarious bumps in the road, rather than the acrimonious split that was to come - though Whitecross doesn't shy away from the intense sibling rivalry and rightly shadows the fallout with a portentous scene early on in the film which sees Liam declare to the band that he'd been reading the Bible recently and found much to compare between him and his older brother and "that Abel and....Cable"

With both Liam and Noel participating with voiceover reminiscences (along with Bonehead, Mark Coyle and many other key figures) this truly is a first hand account not just of the band, but also of their lives. The snaps of a grinning, gauche teenage Liam and Noel strumming a guitar in preparation for his duties as the roadie for Inspiral Carpets warm the hearts and amuse the audience as well as reminding us that these acrimonious rock giants are, first and foremost, brothers; ordinary working class siblings from a council estate in Burnage. The archive footage may make much of the Gallagher brothers legendary arrogance, but Whitecross' film delves deeper to capture a candid and heartfelt account of these ordinary lads with extraordinary talent, with both men cannily astute enough to know the part they had to play for the media, with Noel claiming that his role before the cameras was always to be a 'gobshite' whilst Liam shunned all the aspects of music and songwriting to be 'over there, looking cool as fuck' They knew what was required of them, and they delivered in spades. They were, as some might say, mad fer it.

"None of this matters," Noel says at one point, when discussing his abusive father's attempts to inveigle himself into the limelight, and their difficult relationship with him "What will remain is the songs" He could almost be talking about the current impasse between him and Liam. But yes, we have the songs - and oh what songs they are, soundtrack to the lives of so many of my generation - but we sadly do not have Oasis any more, and that's a real shame. Whatever your thoughts on a reunion - will they, won't they, should they, shouldn't they - you can't deny that the world was a better, brighter and more eventful place with them.

Out On Blue Six: Oasis

In preparation for seeing Supersonic, the new documentary film about the brothers Gallagher, I've been pulling out and playing my old Oasis albums somewhat relentlessly.

She's Electric was track 9 on (What's The Story) Morning Glory? the band's second studio album, and it was always a favourite of mine. The cheeky chappieness of the song's narrator, professing his love for his girl but adding the proviso that he needs 'more time' whilst eyeing up everyone from her sister, her cousins and her mother, is pure Max Miller, whilst the lyric shamelessly mines from children's BBC show You and Me, tapping into that dole queue existence of grown men in their twenties and late teens with nothing else to do but watch kids TV. Other influences point back to the Fab Four themselves of course, with cues from While My Guitar Gently Weeps and the rousing, falling 'ahh' finale reminiscent of With a Little Help From My Friends

It's just the perfect slice of Britpop

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Manchester Passion (2006)

Passion plays, the staged reconstructions of Christ's last hours, have been a ritual tradition of drama and song performed in Christian countries during Easter for centuries. In Gouda on Good Friday, 2011 a Dutch adaptation of The Passion, featuring well known Dutch language songs was broadcast on TV and has proved so successful that it has become an annual event ever since...but it all started, of course, in Manchester in 2006 with BBC3's Manchester Passion.

It's easy to dismiss something like Manchester Passion. With society at its most secular any attempt to celebrate traditional Christian values or approach the stories we have been told since childhood anew from an intelligent, contemporary stance has often been met with derision. It's a great shame really because, whilst I am not religious (I consider myself either agnostic or atheist depending on what mood you catch me in) the practice of faith and the stories told therein fascinates me. Manchester Passion sought to tell the story of Christ's betrayal and crucifixation live in the heart of the North West city on the evening of Good Friday April 14th via the songs that originated in that city; Morrissey, The Smiths, New Order, Joy Division, The Stone Roses, Oasis, James, M People and Robbie Williams provided the soundtrack to the key moments in Christ's final hours sung by an eclectic cast including Darren Morfitt as Christ, Keith Allen as the host and as Pilate and James frontman Tim Booth as Judas Iscariot.  

In between these dramatisations, cameras followed the procession of a giant specially made illuminated cross as it made its way from one end of the city to the other, with then North West Tonight anchor and reporter Ranvir Singh (now known nationally after ITV poached her for Daybreak and latterly Good Morning Britain) interviewing those accompanying it.

It's a great spectacle and, as a live event, was pretty flawless. Yes it's a teensy bit naff in places but that's perhaps to be expected. Through strong performances and those songs that set Manchester apart you can actually reconsider the stories that bored you during RE at school in a similar thought provoking yet entertaining manner as in Stewart Lee's excellent show What Would Judas Do? I defy anyone not to feel their spirit soar a little upon seeing Morfitt standing at the Town Hall clock tower singing 'I Am The Resurrection' to the wrapped audience down below in Albert Square.

Look out for Tony Wilson hovering by the burger van and Shameless star Chris Bisson as the ''Shameless criminal Barabbas'' Bez from the Happy Mondays was set to appear as a criminal in the van on the way to Pilate but bottled out at the last moment (he appears in the trails I believe) to be replaced by a Liam-alike. The whole thing is available to watch on YouTube.

At Christmas 2007, a Capital of Culture awarded Liverpool sought to tell the story of Christ's birth along similar lines with The Liverpool Nativity but that was shite and had more to do with Liverpool and its winning bid than it did with religion and so it has rightly been forgotten and consigned to the vaults. Unfortunately it's failure has meant that, unlike Holland, no such revivals of The Passion has occurred since - though Michael Sheen performed a 72 hour Passion in his hometown of Port Talbot, highlights of which appeared on BBC Wales and was similarly effective.

Theme Time : Beady Eye - In With The Flynns

In With The Flynns was never going to win critical acclaim or comedy awards. In fact I think my favourite review, and possibly the kindest came from Emma Sturgess in The Guardian who said "although In With The Flynns is pretty broad, it's not total crap"

Sadly and perhaps understandably the show ran for just two series between 2011 and 2012, the final second series suffering from cast changes including the departure of Craig Parkinson (first on the right in the photo above) who was largely responsible for what laughs they were to be had in the first series.

The series was an adaptation of a US sitcom entitled Grounded For Life and was set in Manchester concerning the lives of the titular Flynn family. A good natured ensemble cast included Will Mellor, Niky Wardley and Warren Clarke and, to my mind, the show was a passable and nice enough way to spend half an hour at the end of the week raising a smile more than an actual belly laugh.

In keeping with its northern setting, For Anyone the show's theme tune was provided by former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher's band Beady Eye - possibly the only truly decent song they have thus far produced

Live Forever (2003)

If you haven't been living under a rock this last month you'll doubtless be aware that it is now 20 years since Britpop. I'm acutely aware of this fact and, when coupled with the realisation that you've now spent more time out of school than you have in it, it doesn't half make you feel old I can tell you. 

When Britpop hit the scene in 1994 its fair to say that as a 14/15 year old it struck a chord with me. I'd previously devoured my parents vinyl collection for Beatles records and rode the criticism from my peers for being into 'old fogies' music. Then came Oasis and suddenly the world turned on its head. Six months down the line I well remember the alleged cool kids at school saying 'well if you like Oasis you really wanna check out The Beatles, because they're much better' Hmm, not exactly what you were saying a year ago eh guys? Being at school, GCSE's on the horizon, standing on the precipice of the big wide world it felt revitalising to believe something was genuinely in the air, that the country was on the up, just as much as it felt odd that music, mere music, could give us that sense of optimism.

Of course we quickly discovered that the up meant Blair and a massive big fart in our collectively hopeful faces. 

Live Forever a 2003 music documentary film directed by John Dower covers all of this, walking the line between the music, the politics and the cultural compass of the UK at the time. There's a great feeling for all of this and the period as a whole right across the board as befits the team that brought us the equally conscientious and well edited/compiled One Day In September, as well as some wonderfully candid talking heads; Jarvis Cocker is always good value, Damon Albarn once again shows how savvy he is and how unfairly maligned he was during his heyday whilst Sleeper's Louise Wener proves to be the most intelligent and aware of her alumni. Then there's the brothers - Liam and Noel. The former is his usually funny and infuriating self with one scene regarding his alleged androgynous appeal proving a particularly hilarious highlight, whilst the latter proves to be just as intelligent and articulate as the others but still clearly somewhat bewitched and misguided about that now infamous Number 10 meet and greet. Face it Noel, you were bought.

For the 20th anniversary this film, made just in time for the 10th anniversary, is still a fitting watch but I would argue a few more talking heads would have made it something truly special; Elastica, Garbage, The Manics, Suede, Menswear, Supergrass, Echobelly, Catatonia...surely some of those were available?

Incidentally, the eternal question 'Blur or Oasis?' continues to reverberate to this day - I've seen Damon Albarn asked about the rivalry twice just yesterday on two separate TV shows - for what it's worth whenever I was asked it in the playground I always answered the same; 'Pulp'.