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Oasis

Oasis closed the BBC Electric Proms last night with the most intimate and forceful gig of their tour so far. But the novelty came from support band, Glasvegas, recently No 2 in the album charts with their debut, and pretenders to the Oasis throne. "They're the reason that we're even in a band," Glasvegas's singer James Allan confessed to the crowd. "The reason that I even picked up a guitar is Oasis." And they are, in so many ways, the band Oasis once were.

They adore the echo-drenched pop of Phil Spector and Suicide as the Gallaghers once spliced The Beatles with punk. Both bands draw heavily on their working-class backgrounds. But Oasis reacted with football-chant defiance, rooted in mundane situations rock'n'roll would lead them out of. Allan picks at the pain of his past, and makes it grand. The catch in his throat as he sings "Daddy's Gone", a hymn to his helpless devastation when his father walked out, may be showbiz but Glasvegas otherwise radiate urgent faith.

It isn't the material to provoke the joyous, beery melée Oasis do when they walk on. Watching them earlier on this tour, a gradual improvement in energy was undercut by a feeling of sadness. You could see them searching desparately for their lost greatness.

The intimate Roundhouse, rather than their giant stadium gigs next summer, proves the right place to make their last stand as a relevant band. Their buzzing, thick sound is enclosed here, bouncing claustrophobically off the walls. Liam, looking ready to punch his own shadow, roams the small stage like a caged beast. Holding his tambourine in his teeth during "Cigarettes and Alcohol", he delicately tosses it into the crowd, just to watch the riot.

Noel is hampered by broken ribs still weeks from healing after a Canadian on-stage assault. For "The Masterplan" he is bolstered by the Crouch End Choir. Noel introduces Daniel Craig and Russell Brand up in the rafters, but dedicates "The Importance of Being Idle" to Glasvegas. "Apart from the lyrical content," he can't help adding. "Because that could do with some work."

He has never let Allan's lacerating self-exposure into his songs; and he may be intimating this isn't the way to stadium success. And yet new album Dig Your Own Soul provides, in "Falling Down", his first moment of middle-aged doubt. And he sings his best song "Don't Look Back in Anger" like a comforting friend.

Oasis end with "Pomp and Circumstance", inserted by the generally redundant choir into The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus".

They are a band that cannot reinvent their sound, only reinforce it. Sensitivity and the future may be Glasvegas's. But the sheer force of Oasis's past takes the night.

Source: www.independent.co.uk

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