To the fury of the self-appointed intelligentsia, Liam Gallagher (the most irretrievably Oasis of all former Oasis members) continues his unstoppable rise to mainstream ubiquity.
Having casually, and apparently effortlessly, identified and then serially supplied the exact strain of post-Lennon terrace-friendly air-punching, tears-in-the-beers anthems required to set the prevailing zeitgeist’s populist pop-rock pulse racing, he continues to make hay while the sun shee-ines. Of course, this used to be his elder brother’s alchemical area of expertise. But now? Not so much.
It’s already set to be Liam’s year – two sold-out Knebworths attest to that. So what better time to deliver not only C’mon You Know, a caricature third album accentuating every last sneer-propelled, Revolver-informed ingredient that his Oasis-weaned fan base expect, but also Down By The River Thames’s heroic record of his audacious live show.
The latter is an unashamedly crowd-pleasing spectacle comprising a wall of solo hits (Once, Shockwave) alongside a full complement of Oasis-era bangers (Hello, Champagne Supernova), in dream set-list terms the Britpop equivalent of today’s Robert Plant simultaneously Shapeshifting, Krauss-ing, releasing a dove during Stairway To Heaven and mercilessly hip-thrusting a titanic Zep-alike clone of Immigrant Song.
C’mon You Know itself is a bit of a cracker, finding a ‘repentant’ Liam (‘I admit that I was angry for too long’ – choir-enhanced opener More Power) gleefully infuriating his usual detractors (with Diamonds In The Dark’s ‘Now I know how many holes it takes to…’ hook), delivering catnip ballads (Too Good For Giving Up), hitting all the right Liam Gallagher buttons (Don’t Go Halfway) and occasionally kicking hand-me-down Stonesy arse (Everything’s Electric).
Liam Gallagher is 50 this year. Imagine that.
