Let there be love

For the last few years, I’ve been treating Liam Gallagher gigs like a chubby child treats ice cream vans.

When I hear one is coming, I get all excited, shudder at the thought of how terrible I am going to feel afterwards, then get all excited again.

And, just like the ice cream kid, it doesn’t matter how long has passed since my last decadent indulgence, I’m always ready for another.

For example, this summer, two times I went to hear the man who abbreviates his own name to LG. First in Dublin, then again in Belfast.

On both occasions, I was drunk and he was mighty.

In Dublin, both those things were especially true.

The concert was in 3Arena, which most would agree is a pretty intimate venue when compared with the feel of a big outdoor festival-type gig.

But to an inebriated Omagh man with a balcony seat who is being blasted with tunes from one of his favourite band’s best albums, it felt about the same size as the auditorium in Strule Arts Centre.

It was mega.

A few years ago, me and my brother went to see Noel Gallagher and his High Flying Birds in Belfast.

I remember we got there and were disgusted by just how few people were in the crowd.

“Must all be in pub getting a few last pints onboard,” we reasoned.

However, things got even more sickening when the support act – some band that neither of us cared about called Catfish And The Bottlemen – finished playing and about 30 per-cent of the crowd disappeared, leaving just me, my brother, and, much to Noel’s chargrin, a load of men in their 40s dressed and sporting the same haircuts as his wee brother.

For some reason, Noel, the wordsmith, lyricist and composer behind the biggest band of the Britpop era, has never been able to attract a crowd like his younger sibling.

What made Oasis great in the ‘90s was undoubtedly an alchemy made possible only by the contributions of both brothers.

It was ineffable and hard to put your finger on, but it had something to do with Noel’s poetry and melodic imagination, Liam’s voice, look and charisma, all wrapped up in a kind of brash, laddish, hedonistic aesthetic.

Whether you were an artsy Pulp fan who found them low-brow and unoriginal, or a devoted follower that thought of them as the second coming of The Beatles, nobody could deny that they packed a punch.

I mean, you know your music blew a hole in the cultural stratosphere when 30 years later there are 16-year-old girls who have never heard a single one of your hits running about wearing oversized t-shirts with your band name emblazoned on them.

Anyway, getting to the crunch, as most of you will probably by now be aware, the Gallagher brothers – after 15 years of war, during which an occasional online slagging session was said to be the sum of their communication – have agreed to resurrect the band that brought them more fame and fortune than either could really handle.

Yes. The wait is finally over. Oasis are back.

And everybody is mad fer it.

Including me – albeit, admittedly, less than I probably would be had I not already (twice this summer) heard Liam performing the same songs that will no doubt constitute the bulk of the set list on their comeback tour.

Since the announcement, I have heard people say all kinds of weird things about their motivations for reforming.

“I bet they never even fell out in the first place and that it was all just a big publicity ploy to build interest around a reunion tour,” said one fella.

“I’d say they still aren’t speaking and they are only letting on they’re back on speaking terms so that they don’t have to tell the truth and confess that it’s all for the money,” argued another.

Personally, I reckon it’s a bit of both.

Time is a healer and the cash cow has only been getting fatter with every passing year since the band split back in 2009.

I think that it took almost exactly 15 years for these two things – the abatement of their hatred for one another and the attractiveness of the reunion purse – to finally intersect.

And that’s a reconciliation of a kind, isn’t it?