This will be a quick and easy AOTW, this live set just hit shelves last Friday and it doesn’t require rocket surgery to have a listen and look at. An old warrior relives his glory days at the site of one of his biggest historic triumphs, getting the rare chance to live in the moment one more time.
Liam Gallagher – Knebworth ’22
Released August 11, 2023 via Warner Records
Oasis played two historic shows at Knebworth House in 1996. Those gigs were the apex of Oasis’ hype and popularity and are often seen as the zenith of the Britpop movement. In 2021 the Gallagher brothers released a live album and documentary about their Knebworth experience, and in 2022 Liam was booked as a solo act to rekindle the old magic again. Over 250,000 people attended the 1996 Oasis gigs, in 2022 Liam would play two nights to a total crowd of 170,000.
My recap of the Oasis Knebworth album and film can be found here.
Liam played his two shows in early June of ’22, just shy of 26 years after the Oasis sets. He would bring an assortment of material, both from his three-album deep solo catalog and several Oasis standards. While he played 21 songs each night, the album offers a slimmer version with 16 songs, with 9 Oasis songs and 7 Liam solo tunes. Most of the omissions aren’t really a big deal except for one which I’ll get to during the huge encore section. One song did get played on night one but not on night two – the solo single Shockwave, which is on this live package.
There was also an unfortunate omission from Liam’s band – he had often been joined the past few years by former Oasis mate Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs. Bonehead spent a good part of 2022 in treatment for cancer, which he was cleared of last September. He was unable to join Liam’s tour and Liam dedicated More Power to Bonehead at the shows.
The setlist for the live album is as follows:
Hello
Rock N’ Roll Star
Wall Of Glass
Shockwave
Everything’s Electric
Roll It Over
Slide Away
More Power
C’Mon You Know
The River
Once
Cigarettes And Alcohol
Some Might Say
Supersonic
Wonderwall
Champagne Supernova
The live set holds pretty constant through the performances – the songs are executed faithfully by the band, a few of them get an uptick in tempo due to the energy of the huge live performance. Liam holds serve pretty well through this long set. He does get a bit shouty in a few places but I think that’s a consequence of the music going hard as opposed to any issues he was having. Overall Liam sounds really good for someone who has a thyroid disease and had to re-find his voice in order to launch his solo career. He doesn’t get to some of the crazy performances he did in 1996 but his presentation here is well done.
The set jumps between solo songs and Oasis tracks for awhile, one interesting Oasis inclusion is Roll It Over from 2000. It’s not one I’d expect to be on a setlist for a huge show like this but the song works pretty well and is an under the radar pick for the set. Liam performs most of his solo singles here, when he gets to More Power he does a 4-song suite of his songs, concluding with his most renowned solo effort Once. He announces that Once is the last song, though there is one monster of an encore coming.
The encore is an all Oasis affair and kicks off with Cigarettes And Alcohol. That one is performed almost as a heavy metal or punk track, it goes heavy and hard. Some Might Say gets a bit similar treatment, while Supersonic is actually toned down a notch and has a psychedelic vibe to it that stands out even from old Oasis performances. Wonderwall is handled in great fashion, with Liam letting the crowd sing the chorus. The audience knew the words, not only to Wonderwall but most of the other songs, even Liam’s solo singles.
Champagne Supernova closes the night. Liam dedicates the song to his mom Peggy, who is in attendance. It doesn’t seem to be announced from the stage anywhere, at least on the album, but former Stone Roses guitarist John Squire makes a guest spot on the song, just as he did with Oasis at Knebworth in 1996. The album goes out with Liam thanking the crowd and then the guitar ringing out for about a minute after the band is done, apparently they have Nigel Tufnel’s old Fender with that famous sustain.
A few songs were left off, both Oasis cuts like Stand By Me and Liam’s solo songs like Why Me Why Not and Diamond In The Dark. None of those exclusions really bother me, this thing is a 76 minute long album as it is and I can understand making a few tough choices to keep packaging reasonable. But there is one notable exclusion from the Oasis encore section – Live Forever was performed both nights but didn’t wind up on the record. I would have loved to have that song on this album, but for whatever reason it wasn’t included.
The album is pretty well done, there are a few rather abrupt edits that I find odd for a label like Warner to leave on, they clearly cut something out between Liam honoring his mom and the actual start of Champagne Supernova and there are a few other spots that weren’t blended in that well. They aren’t major issues but they do stand out.
Overall Knebworth ’22 does a good job of capturing this historic performance. The atmosphere of an 85,000 strong crowd carries over through the audio, everything feels grand and heavy, like there’s literally electricity in the air. All the instruments sound good, the drums sound almost a little too good but that could just be how they set up to capture things, it’s not all that hard to get a great live sound recorded in the 2020’s. This one is more for the invested Oasis and Liam fan, though people who were in during the 1990’s might find the set a nice bit of nostalgia. It’s about as close to an actual Oasis reunion as we’re likely to get and this set does bring back a bit of that old Knebworth magic from way back when.
The Crooked Wanderer 