Review 'Oasis' In Ottawa

Concert review: Oasis
A production as slick as they come
Lynn Saxberg, The Ottawa Citizen

Between the ferocious playing, massive lighting rig and ear-splitting sound, the members of Oasis mounted an unsurpassed attack on the senses on Thursday, turning their first concert in Ottawa into a momentous occasion in the city's rock 'n' roll history.

Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit, but a concert on this scale would send any music fan over the moon. It was spectacular, with the extra bonus of two decent opening acts: Ryan Adams and the Cardinals and singer-songwriter Matt Costa.

Too bad there were only 7,000 of us in attendance, the low turnout possibly due to the fact the concert took place during the first week of school. In my scan of the crowd, there were scores of young adults, but not many who looked as though they needed to hire a babysitter on a school night. (Barrhaven, you missed a great show.)

Although Oasis has been around for more than a decade and has a devoted fan base in Canada, the one-time British chart-toppers usually only touch down in Toronto, Vancouver and possibly Montreal on their world tours.

But with a new album due for release in October, and a major U.K. tour already sold out, this string of North American dates (most of them in Canada) was put together to make sure the band and its crew are in tip-top form when the new-album madness begins.

The tour started Aug. 26 in Seattle so by Thursday's concert, it was clear that most of the issues have been smoothed out. Except for a couple of minor technical glitches, the production was as slick as they come, scripted according to a setlist drawn up at the beginning of the tour. The band members are playing the same songs in the same order each night, starting with a blistering but straightforward version of Rock 'N' Roll Star and ending with the intense psychedelia of The Beatles' I Am The Walrus.

The unvarying setlist might have been a drag if you were one of the faithful attending more than one show or if you were hoping for a certain tune not on the list, but with about two-thirds of the songs drawn from early discs, it was definitely a crowd-pleasing assortment.

What was remarkable was that band managed to maintain the sense that anything could happen, musically or otherwise. Of course, some of that feeling is due to the well-documented tension within the band, the longstanding rivalry between singer Liam Gallagher and his brother, chief songwriter Noel Gallagher.

However, on stage at Scotiabank Place, the brothers' differences were put aside, and, along with their bandmates, they seemed to focus on one goal:to blow minds.

With all instruments set to stun, the sensory pummeling began with the no-nonsense attack of Rock & Roll and Lyla, guitars blazing and lights strobing. Over the next 100 minutes or so, the band cycled through rapture-inducing hits such as Wonderwall, Morning Glory and Champagne Supernova, and unveiled several new songs from the forthcoming disc, titled Dig Out Your Soul.

Clad in a leather jacket, Liam adopted his bent-knee stance at the microphone as if bracing himself against his own torrential voice of anguish. Against the edge of Liam's nasal-tinged pipes, big bro' Noel sharpened his distinctive electric-guitar licks, demonstrating the base on which Oasis' sound is constructed. In the audience, fans sang along and displayed their love by raising their illuminated cellphones and Blackberrys.

As for the new songs, they seem to hint at a groovy new direction for Oasis. Played early in the concert, the first single The Shock of the Lightning featured a good chunk of psychedelic spaciness, the noodling then continuing in the middle of another new song, To Be Where There's Life, which Liam dedicated to Manchester's football team. The pulsing, trippy vibe surfaced again in the Noel-sung Falling Down, one of the finest of the new batch, and later came to a crashing finale in a fierce set-closing cover of I Am The Walrus.

Source: www.canada.com

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