Oasis Lord Don't Slow Me Down Review

Three Stars Out Of Five

Release Date - 29 October

If god had wanted Oasis to be art, he wouldn't have invented Liam.

There are some things you expect from a film of Oasis on tour. Scowling from Liam Gallagher, dry wit from Noel, much sibling rivalry, more swearing and the occasional suggestion that there are other members of the band. Lord Don't Slow Me Down, filmed during the course of their triumphal, year-long Don't Believe The Truth tour, ticks all of these boxes.It just doesn't do so enougth.

Director Baillie Walsh - previous employers Massive Attack, New Order and Kylie - elects to film Oasis in grainy black and White, the odd burst of over-exposed colour aside, his cameras relentlessly seeking out the most oblique angle or unexpected vantage point. Sometimes this approach works a treat: Oasis have perhaps never looked more imposing, more dramatic onstage; a sly shot through a crack in Gallagher Jr's dressing-room door delightfully captures the singer on his own, gibbon dancing around, entirely oblivious to the watching camera.

More often, it's all ill-fitting juxtaposition to have Oasis on-the-road life, which seems to amount to a 12-month stag night, shot as if for the arthouse. Which is not to say Walsh appears touched by cinematic genius - the overriding impression felt by Lord Don't Slow Me Down is of someone messing about with the medium, while never really grasping what it can do.

He's either not understood or undervalued the all-important humour inherent within the Gallagher's. Hence, the brothers tend to drift in and out of focus on their own film.

When they're there, top-notch entertainment is never far away. Liam's encounter with Girls Aloud at a Q photoshoot is priceless. And Noel, looking ever more like long-suffering chauffeur Parker from Thunderbirds, has all the best lines. Reflecting upon when they'll stop touring, he concludes, "One day, Liam will go bald, and that will be it."

The extras help to right this wrong. The band's commentary serves up a handfull of belly laughs - Liam berating a New York cabbie for failing to run over Noel;

Noel during a the course of otherwise diplomatically negotiating a backstage appearance by Charlotte Church, announcing as one of the more agricultural members of her entourage hoves into view, "Now look at this f**king vegetable."

There is, too, a bonus disc featuring 90 minutes of footage of the band's gig at the City Of Manchester Stadium, which emphasises that none do the big communal singalong thing better, despite the fact it seems to have been recorded through a duvet.

Good then. But not that good.

Source: Q Magazine thanks to Kenny Tang for the scan.