Cognac Blues Passion: Liam Gallagher, the former brat of Manchester, is back on top

The old lead vocals of Oasis come a long way. In 2009, the legendary Britpop group split up at Rock en Seine after yet another violent altercation between Liam Gallagher and his big brother Noel, the brains behind the quintet. The youngest of the siblings keeps his companions from Oasis by his side to form Beady Eye. The affair will give birth to two vaguely pop and perfectly anonymous albums, then to a separation five years later.

Old tubes of Oasis

In the same year, he added a £5.5million divorce and a booze sinking. Beady Eye’s former assistant, Debbie Gwyther, becomes his companion, his manager, and puts him back on the right track by diverting him from the shooters at Guiness. He accepts to be only a poor author and composer. And that his audience wants to hear him sing Oasis hits and new songs that sound like it. Supported by an army of “songwriters”, he launched himself under his own name. The card is immediate.

Liam Gallagher has found his voice and his way. His current setlists are half composed of Oasis titles, written by his big brother, those who made the United Kingdom vibrate and sing in the mid-1990s. Twenty-six years later, he has just filled the stadium with Manchester (60,000 people) and the Knebworth estate (twice 80,000 spectators) in North London to sing “Rock’n’Roll Star”, “Supersonic”, “Champagne Supernova” or “Wonderwall”.

tea drugs

The timbre is scratchy and still just as nasal, the notes held for less time, but the ardor and passion are intact. The boy has calmed down. Gone are the days when he was the delight of the tabloids for his alcoholic and drugged escapades.

The swaying gait, the proud gaze and the permanent arrogance are still there

In the firmament of Oasis, when he still thought he was the reincarnation of John Lennon, he admitted that reaching 40 years old would already be a great achievement given his lifestyle. Now he drinks tea and sticks to one jog a day on tour.

The one who lives today for “(his) family, rock and Manchester City”, one of the two clubs in his city, has not completely denied himself either. The swaying gait, the proud gaze and the permanent arrogance are still there. Facing the microphone, the hands are joined behind the back, the legs bent, the neck stretched. It makes no sense, but he remains a particularly charismatic “frontman” who avoids falling into kitsch or pathos.

Cataloged lower forehead

If you don’t speak fluent English, you won’t understand anything he says between two songs, with his northern accent. That’s good: he doesn’t care. It’s a shame: he is particularly funny. He’s long been branded as a bastard who probably would have ended up in jail if he hadn’t been sucked into the music, and his brother once called him “a man with a fork in a world of soup”. The two haven’t spoken to each other since the end of Oasis. Sometimes they light up through tweets or interposed interviews. Noel leads a rather cushy, less flamboyant solo career. Liam is still driving at 100 an hour. And for now, it works. Until when ?