Month: June 2019

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds & Doves @ Heaton Park, Manchester

High flying performances from Noel Gallagher & Doves

On Monday evening I was presented with an opportunity to see Noel Gallagher at Heaton Park in Manchester. My brother-in-law, Richard, had been going with a mate of his. His mate couldn’t go, and that left a spare ticket. Once I realised Doves we’re playing too, the 2 hour (+) journey was obviously going to be worth it. I offered to drive and we got set off at about 3.30pm.

We knew we would miss the first act; Inhaler, but managed to arrive not long after the start of White Denim. We managed to get into the car park easy enough and tracked through the Parklife Festival site which Noel was sensibly using. It was about 6.15 by the time we got a burger and chips and settled in to watch White Denim. There wasn’t a huge crowd at that point. I’m sure that loads hasn’t yet arrived, but the site was massive too, with all the food stalls already set up and open ready for the weekend’s festival. There was also a massive Ferris wheel open for those who felt that way inclined. The burger was good, but was barely warm which was a little disappointing. We grabbed a pint each of £5.50 Carlsberg and winced as we did so. We consumed the ice cold pint in cold and wet conditions as we enjoyed what remained of the White Denim set. They sounded fine, although clearly the sound was affected by the wind and wet and at times it felt like a generic festival performance from a band you’d happily drift by.

It was clear from an early point that many drinks had been consumed and the crowd were a mix of friendly huggy drunks and aggressive idiots. Drugs were clearly widely available with Rich and I being asked at least 3 times during the course of the night. The guys in front clearly decided to partake, as the dealer whipped out a massive bag of pills. It was as blatant as I’ve ever seen. Each to their own.

Doves

Amazingly, it’s been 14 years since I last saw Doves. December 2005 was the last one. This was the fourth gig since returning from a 9 year hiatus. It was the 7th time I’d seen them. It’s a surprise to me that I didn’t see them between 2005 and their final gigs in 2010, but that probably reflects the limited amount of gigs I went to in that period.

Doves didn’t disappoint. They possibly weren’t as tight as they have been, but that wasn’t particularly noticeable. They weren’t helped by the driving rain during the first half of their set. This and the wind took the sound in and out and with some moments where hoods up were essential, the poor sound was exacerbated.

It’s great to have Doves back. I just picked up the first three albums on vinyl last week and I was reminded about how brilliant they are. This was a 12 track set drawing from each album, but most coming from The Last Broadcast including; Pounding, There Goes The Fear, Caught By The River, Words & Last Broadcast. Surprisingly the next most farmed album was Kingdom of Rust with the title track, Winter Hill and 10:03 each having an outing. Two each from the remaining two albums with Cedar Room and Rise from Lost Souls and Black & White Town plus Snowden from Some Cities.

Rise sounded incredible and was the set inclusion that I was most surprised to hear. Lost Souls seems to be their most revered album, although my personal favourite is The Last Broadcast. The fact that Lost Souls is such a fan fave left me surprised that at a hometown gig, there were not more tunes pulled from it. I was sure that Here It Comes would have had an airing.

I’ve listened to each Doves album loads, but as I tried to sing along it became immediately apparent that I’ve always struggled to decipher many Doves lyrics and so can usually only join the chorus (if I even have that right!). I suspect I a lot has to do with Jimi’s vocal style, but the same applies when both Jez and Andy take lead vocal. Perhaps it’s their murky but distinctive sound. Whatever. They are still pure brilliance. 10:03 sounded superb, as did Caught By The River. To be fair, everything sounded good but they ended with the usual stylish, There Goes The Fear. That chorus and those drums. Love it. Can’t wait to see them in a smaller venue next year.

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Noel took the stage with his band at about 9pm. The rain had stopped, but the alcohol had continued to flow in the crowd. Opening with the excellent Fort Knox, Noel banged out 6 High Flying Birds tunes before introducing something from his lesser known first band. I’m not that clued up on the Noel stuff, but I knew enough to appreciate some catchy tunes that are better than I’ve previously given them credit for. After three HFB albums, he’s already built up a decent back catalogue of post-Oasis material. Black Star Dancing sounded great live, although Richard felt it was a little slow. I don’t know why I was surprised, but everyone around me knew the words to every Noel G HFB song. What was less of a surprise was the volume (numbers and sound) of audience participation for every Oasis number. Talk Tonight was the first Oasis time of the night. Always one of my favourite b-sides from an absolutely classic era of brilliant tunes. The b-side is a great acoustic number, but performed as a band it potentially lost a little of its magic. That’s not to say it wasn’t still great. The Importance Of Being Idle came next and brought another great reaction. Never one of my fave Oasis tunes, but it’s sounded bloody marvellous. Little By Little followed. Perhaps my least favourite Oasis single? Richard notes that it sounded amazing live and is a huge crowd favourite. He wasn’t wrong.

4 more NGHFB songs were next. I didn’t know Dead In The Water, but it sounded like a lost Oasis classic acoustic b-side. AKA What A Life was brilliant. Noel wasn’t game for much banter during the set, but dedicated AKA What A Life to Manchester City and Stop Crying Your Heart Out to Leeds (the mention of which, drew a large round of boos!).

The final three songs of the main set were a bit special. The Masterplan sounded absolutely majestic with the chorus being enthusiastically bellowed by every single person in the crowd. Loved it. The classic Wonderwall followed and the set ended with Stop Crying Your Heart Out.

The rain was long since back at this point, although it wasn’t too bad until the full set finished. The inevitable encore followed, but what an encore!

Whatever. Amazing.

Half The World Away. Incredible.

Don’t Look Back In Anger. Superb.

It’s not often I think this sort of thing, but I was in the crowd thinking; that’s Noel Gallagher up there. What a legend. My relationship with Oasis soured as the albums rapidly declines in quality and the last show i saw of theirs was an abysmal, abject headline slot at Glastonbury in 2004. Although my love of the first two classic albums has never dwindled, this has brought me right back in. What a legacy. I’ve always preferred Noel anyway.

I’ve mentioned the crowd. Noel thanked everyone for being incredible, but then noted an idiot in the front row. “What’s going on with you?” …” I wonder what you get up to all day now that Jeremy Kyle is off”. The camera briefly panned to said idiot, before realising it wasn’t worth giving him the time of day. You pay £50+ to seen someone you presumably wanted to see and then get called out by said legend for being an idiot. He must be proud. Sadly. He probably will be.

All You Need Is Love was the set closer and we left happy as the heavens opened, soaking us on the way back to the car. By 1am, I was back home knowing the experience was well worth the trip. Thanks Richard (& your unfortunate mate)!

Post script:

Speaking of idiots. Next to us for much of the Noel set were two of the worst human beings. Just the worst. Two women (we’ll call these Hostile & Aggressive) who were clearly itching for a fight and taking being obnoxious to the next level. In front of us were a pile of plastic bottles interspersed in a discarded poncho and abandoned raincoat. Two women arrived in front of us without problem and took root in front of the bottles and discarded apparel. Apropos of nothing, Hostile (who was the one next to Richard) decided to kick the raincoat onto the back of legs of one of the women in front. It was muddy and wet so the woman clearly wasn’t impressed. She turned around and found Hostile & Aggressive staring at them as if to say “go on, give me an excuse to punch your lights out”. She politely said something and Aggressive rained a volley of verbal abuse at her. The women turned away. Hostile clearly hadn’t had the reaction she desired, so with childlike (and I’m being cruel to children) pettiness, she strayed kicking the empty plastic bottles at the women and had another go with the raincoat. Pathetic. Throughout the gig both Hostile and Aggressive, who clearly did like Noel, were singing loudly (I have no problem here) and gesticulating wildly with their arms right in front of Richard’s face. Like, millimetres in front. Unnecessary. I’m pretty certain Hostile was trying to make Richard dance – at least that’s what the corner of my eye was suggesting. It was also suggesting that Hostile was staring at both of us regularly trying to get a rise. Richard did a brilliant job of ignoring Hostile. At one point a chain of 6 or 7 people came through the crowd between Richard and Hostile. Hostile must have had a brush to the shoulder that she didn’t take kindly two and the last two women to pass by got Hostile’s wrath. At first she pathetically tried to kick a plastic bottle at them. The bottle barely moved due to her inept coordination. Not to be defeated, Hostile’s hostile mind remembered that she was holding a glass of rose wine. Less than a second later the contents were launched in the direction of the offending women, soaking them and many others in the process. The women who had done nothing wrong (people get bumped at gigs) turned and it looked like one was going to start something before being stopped by her mate. Hostile and Aggressive we’re looking pleased with themselves adopting a stance in keeping with their names. Shortly after, the first women who’d been muddied by the raincoat moved to get away from H & A. A nearby bloke started to chat to them clearly commenting on how hostile and aggressive these two were being. Hostile & Aggressive were clearly not happy that this conversation was occurring and used their well honed staring skills to full effect. As the gig wore on, the inevitable crowd shuffling had the fortunate effect of moving these unpleasant individuals away from us and we were bothered no more. Truly the worst of humankind. Fortunately the gig was great.

Doves Setlist Heaton Park, Manchester, England 2019

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds Setlist Heaton Park, Manchester, England, Wait & Return Tour 2019

 

 

Honeyblood @ The Cluny

Honeyblood serve up a quality midweek treat

Having seen Honeyblood on two previous occasions (both at Deer Shed Festivals here & here), all three of us were keen to attend this one. We got to the Cluny fairly early for food, drinks and a good catch up. As is often the case at The Cluny, we were able to play spot the band and spot the support act(s). Both were present and correct in the bar area tonight, but as usual we left them to go about their business.

Food was decent as always. I had an excellent surf and turf burger, Andrew had fish tacos and Ste took on board a Po Boy. Pints all round from the high quality Cluny selection.

LUCIA (I think it’s capitalised) were the support act. I recognised the name from the Deer Shed line up for this year and had already heard a couple of tracks from our playlist. They weren’t as I expected. Hailing from Scotland, the lead singer (Lucia Fairfull) took centre stage and encouraged the building crowd to come forward. We duly obliged and were treated to an intense, intriguing and engaging performance. All 4 band members have perfected the art of the intense and slightly intimidating stare. Deathly quite emerged from the audience in between songs – likely resulting from a mix of fear and the compelling nature of the show.

At one point the band stopped mid song and stared at the audience for what felt like an age (10-20 seconds?) and no one dared move. I took a drink and tried my hardest not to smile. An once cube plopped to the bottom of Ste’s plastic pint pot behind me and the song got underway again. During the final number, Lucia took herself into the audience with the microphone and turned the intensity up to 11. A definite band to watch at Deer Shed in July. Intensity in ten cities.

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Honeyblood

Having just released the third album, we anticipated the set to be filled with tracks from In Plain Sight and had used this as the basis of our pre-gig revision / research. In the end, the set drew almost equally from all 3 albums with 5 from Babes Never Die and In Plain Sight and 6 from Honeyblood (5 in the main set + 1 in the encore). This meant we were all slightly less familiar with some of the material. The set was excellent. Once more, an example of a show being positively influenced by a band that are clearly enjoying themselves on stage.

The polite silence between tracks carried over from the crowd with LUCIA, although this felt a more comfortable quiet borne out of respect for a great show. The new tunes all sounded great with Babes Never Die and Killer Bangs providing expected high points. Honeyblood is now a solo project of Stina Tweeddale and her stage presence and likeability shine throughout.

The final encore being a solo number as the other band mates didn’t know any other tunes (according to Stina). The latest album is really good and I considered an LP purchase, but there was no price given and it’s shaping up to be an expensive month, so I passed on this occasion. The encore also had an amusing side note of an audience member buying the three of them a drink which was waiting on the stage. Stina drank her tequila and the other two races back on stage for their drinks (tequila and a massive red wine).

An enjoyable night that left with all three of us feeling very impressed.

Honeyblood Setlist The Cluny, Newcastle, England 2019, No Drama Tour