I was listening to this Noel Gallagher show from 2011 that I saw at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco and tweeted about it earlier this week. A Twitter friend asked if I could share the copy, so along with posting the link to this full show, I thought I’d share my recollection to go with it. If you’re looking for more Oasis after that incredible documentary that came last year, here you go.
This was one of the all-time best shows I’ve ever seen. My girlfriend at the time won tickets to this show from the AmoebaSF account on Twitter — they’d routinely give away tickets to shows where you had to be the first to retweet it to win (they’ve since changed it to a random draw). Somehow she nabbed these tickets. The first concert I ever saw in my life was Oasis at the Shoreline in Mountain View on September 11, 2005, with Jet and Kasabian opening. It was awesome for everything to come full circle and see Noel (my favorite Gallagher brother by far) do his thing.
Our tickets were for the balcony, but we somehow managed to sneak right past the security guy watching the door to the floor. Not only that, but coming in from the side we were able to work our way all the way to the front rail, right side. The show came just a month after Noel released his first album as Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds — a really solid record from front-to-back. However, Noel didn’t waste anytime playing some Oasis tunes, kicking the show off with “(It’s Good) To Be Free” and “Mucky Fingers.”
Early in the set, he played my two favorite cuts from his new record — “Everybody’s On the Run” and “If I Had a Gun…” — two different but equally powerful tracks. The first might be famous for the video starring Mischa Barton aka The OC’s Marissa Cooper. I loved the roaring guitars and depth of the track — it’s probably as good as anything Oasis put out on their last few albums. The latter song features some of the most romantic prose Gallagher ever penned.
The feel of this concert was unlike any I’d been to since that Oasis show in 2005. It had the feel of a soccer match — albeit with everyone rooting for one team. There was a massive British flag in the crowd. People were drunk, but joyously drunk. We sang along with the crowd to every jam, the crowd providing immense backing vocals for Noel at all times.
My favorite moment came when Noel stripped it back a bit for a few songs. He played an acoustic rendition of “Supersonic” — one of my favorite Oasis tracks ever. The original is a banger, but on this version, Noel slowed the tempo a bit. His keyboard player Mikey Rowe really shined on this, providing the solo that Noel plays on guitar on the original track, but on keys. You can listen to this version below, I’ve uploaded it for you to hear for yourself. A few songs, another Oasis gem “Talk Tonight” was played.
“Talk Tonight” is a song about when Noel basically quit the band and fled to San Francisco and holed himself up in a girl he barely knew’s place, talking through his issues. It made it a bit more special.
The encore was three Oasis songs: “Little By Little,” “The Importance of Being Idle” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” (my all-time favorite Oasis jam, no surprise given Noel was on lead vocals). You can download the entire bootleg below, or just listen to him play the stripped-down “Supersonic.” See the full setlist below. This bootleg was originally obtained via the Oasis Live4Ever bootleg message board from user timekeeper.
DOWNLOAD NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS LIVE AT THE ORPHEUM THEATRE IN SF (2011-11-19) HERE (via Dropbox, 212 mb, mp3)
