Review: Beady Eye, Rock City

"Liam, Liam, Liam," bellow the sold-out Rock City masses, hours before the last Gallagher standing even steps a foot on stage.

The man that once promised a generation that they'd live forever now returns to the fray under a new guise, but can the mouthiest Manc in rock and self-proclaimed John Lennon spirit guide live up to his own hype?

As the words 'Beady Eye' beam on to the back of the stage, Liam Gallagher leers over his adoring audience with his unmistakable menacing cockiness.

Brimming with that magnetic presence that only a true icon can pull off, he inspires a fanatic reaction from every corner of the room with a simple slow turn of his head.

"Sleepwalk away your life if it turns you on," growls Gallagher on opener Four Letter Word. Indeed, nothing would have been easier than for the remaining Oasis members to kick into auto-pilot following Noel's departure – and that's not a million miles from the truth.

At times, their set wanders into a bit of Brit-pop pastiche, but I daresay that's entirely the idea – this is everyman classic rock n' roll to touch that primal raw nerve that lies deep in the belly of your soul.

Charged with bravado but stripped of stadium anthemics, the same man who once told the world that he was going to live forever now stands before us biting back with a chorus of "nothing ever lasts forever."

"I'm gunna stand the test of time, like Beatles and Stones," he drones. Although he's already down in the history books, Gallagher will need to pull out something better than a few John Lennon clichés to re-enter them with Beady Eye.

The trick is to not overthink it. They're clearly a band designed for punters to just switch off and rock out to, and where's the harm in that? Bring The Light is little more than some pub-rock clichés strung together by an infectious Chuck Berry groove, but when played live it's charged with phat pounding bass and a thunderous old-school rock n' roll charm which sends the dads and lads wild, while the pedestrian plod-along The Roller is received as a near-biblical classic as if the crowd have never even heard John Lennon's Instant Karma.

With his trademark swagger and stone-faced persona, Gallagher patrols the Rock City stage less like he's performing and more like he's squaring up to everyone in the room, and they lap it up as the horizon becomes a haze of pumping fists and flailing crowdsurfers' limbs.

The set gets off to a dazzling start, but about a quarter of the way in it loses a momentum that it doesn't really regain until the encore – but Gallagher's disciples barely seem to notice or care.

In fact, the only negative response of the night is saved for him dedicating the monotonous and turgid Brit-pop karaoke dud Kill For A Dream to Man City – not wise in a room of Forest fans.

Tonight, fun as it may be, Gallagher's own legend precedes him, but the music sadly lags far behind.

It's just a bit of harmless fun though – they've not reinvented the wheel but they're still speeding. What is it they say? 'Let it be.'

Source: www.thisisnottingham.co.uk