Oasis (Pyramid Stage, Friday) (review 2)

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Glastonbury Festival 2004

Friday 25th to Sunday 27th June 2004
Worthy Farm, Pilton, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, BA4 4AZ, England MAP
£112 - SOLD OUT

Daily capacity: 150,000

Bear witness to an underwhelming performance from the pride of all England: uninspired and uncommunicative, moody and mechanical, far removed from the triumphant homecoming billed.

A feeling not shared by everyone present, as evidenced by the drunken epiphanies (lager boys hugging each other, eyes wet with alcoholic tears, faces sunburnt to a beetroot red contorted in a rictus of faux revelation; indie girls borne aloft on the skinny shoulders of their indie boyfriends…), the roars of approval which greet those well worn and comfortable crowd favourites. And admittedly, it is hard to be unmoved when lost amidst the 100,000 unwashed and when bellowing the words of songs which still retain some of their original majesty. The crowd then is the star; national flags held aloft, giant candles the beacons of communion.



Back on stage and Liam stands, morose and bearded in a giant white coat, speaking barely a word between songs; rarely pushing his fine voice to the limits of its considerable capability; wandering aimlessly, back to the crowd, absent minded as he shakes his tambourine (with which he will crown himself at the end of the set). Stage left, Noel is rooted in the usual place, lost in his onanistic affair with guitar and plectrum, lovingly churning out riffs in homage to mod past.

The set list is similarly predictable (Rock’n’Roll Star, Supersonic, Live Forever, Cigarettes and Alcohol, Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back in Anger – but strangely no Slide Away: your reviewer’s personal favourite). Innovation, improvisation and inspiration are dirty words here - Paul Weller nodding in approval from on high. The two new numbers debuted show no sign of a band determined, at this pivotal point in their career, to move on bravely into uncharted waters. Indeed in the wake of the festival (the mud, the mud!) Noel speaks of returning to the drawing board now the adventure with Death in Vegas is over; an alliance which could have given birth to a stranger and more interesting fruit but which was instead quashed by an abiding attachment to traditionalism. This is a band who close their set with a cover of the Who’s My Generation and for whom Ringo Starr’s son now bangs the drums.



A decade old, where now then for the nations favourite sons?