On July 19th Noel Gallagher headlined the final day of Latitude festival, describing it as “a fucking Guardian reader’s rally”.
“Someone told me the backstage pass is a copy of today’s Guardian,” he said ahead of playing a country version of Oasis’ ‘Fade Away’. His tongue-in-cheek digs at the newspaper continued throughout the set.
He dedicated Oasis’ ‘Champagne Supernova’ to “all the Guardian writers at the back strung out on some really good rosé, this is called ‘Champagne Socialist’” and introduced ‘Talk Tonight’ in a posh accent, quipping “or, as a Guardian reader might say, ‘We fucking need to talk, man’”.
Gallagher was in talkative mood throughout, introducing ‘Riverman’ by commenting on the size of his brass player’s saxophone. “Look at the size of the saxophone on this feller,” he said, adding, “Anybody else got a saxophone that big?” When an audience member replied, he continued the penis metaphor: “But you can’t have, you’re a girl”.
Later, before playing 1994 Oasis single ‘Whatever’, he engaged in more front row banter, spotting someone with an unspecified animal in the crowd and demanding “Kill it! On television, kill an animal in front of the middle classes. If you don’t I’ll kick its face in. You’re all farmers, you kill animals for a living. And rightly so, I love a bit of meat.”
Then, before ‘The Mexican’ he asked the audience: “Is it true they don’t let scousers into this festival? Are there any Mexicans here?” Addressing someone in the front row he continued, “No way, you’re fucking ginger. A ginger Mexican is rarer than a unicorn.”
When a crowd member cried out for ‘Live Forever’, Gallagher replied “A duet? Me and you? Are you on the brown acid? I’m just humouring this bloke so he buys a T-shirt. If you go to the merchandise stall and buy everything with my name on it, me and you will do ‘Live Forever’. And I mean all of it, even the shit girls’ T-shirts”.
Noel then played ‘The Masterplan’, calling it “another B-side that became a classic. There won’t be any of them in the future.”
Other dedications during the set included Gallagher sending out ‘If I Had A Gun’ to “the coolest person at the festival – not Nicky Wire, my wife. This is for you, Dave” and Oasis B-side ‘Half The World Away’ to “the Royal Family. Not the Nazi-sympathising Windsors, the fictional northern Royle Family, danke shon.”
Concocting a set around solo singles such as ‘The Death Of You And Me’, ‘AKA… What A Life!’ and ‘Dream On’ and rarer Oasis tracks, including a rocked-up take on ‘Digsy’s Dinner’, he closed the 90-minute set with a huge singalong of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’, letting the crowd singing the first two choruses.
Source: NME