Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Arena Birmingham - review and pictures

Nor did it come when he played a series of Oasis classics – Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back In Anger, Half The World Away and a brilliant, rousing, sing-a-long version of Little By Little – good though they were.

No. The best moment came about two thirds of the way through the evening when Noel Gallagher stood front and centre stage, alone with just an acoustic guitar. He played a tune that he’d knocked out in 15 minutes, Dead In The Water, and Arena Birmingham was stunned into silence. Lilting and beautiful, it was as simple as a hymn, as compelling as a first kiss, as memorable as a wedding day.

Taken from his new album, Who Built The Moon?, Dead In The Water is the equal of any song he’s ever written; it’s up there with Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back In Anger, Slide Away and the Britpop-era tunes that provided the soundtrack to a generation.

The audience sang back. Noel smiled. Not a bad evening’s work, all in all. Happy days.

It wasn’t all sentimental ballads, of course. For Noel is the master of the foot-stomping, crowd-pleasing, phone-raising, stadium-pleaser. He writes the sort of tunes that Slade, The Beatles and The Jam once specialised in – sprinkled with Chemical Brothers swashes of electronic and Primal Scream vibes.

And at the city centre venue last night, there were plenty of floor-filling bangers as he tore through a fire-cracking 22-tune set with an exemplary band – featuring a particularly good drummer and a sensational French backing singer.

Happily, it centred on his new album, with a smattering of songs from the two High Flying Birds records that preceded it, his eponymous debut and the thrilling sophomore release Chasing Yesterday.

Fort Knox provided a psychedelic start to proceedings while highlights came thick and fast; from Keep On Reaching and In The Heat Of The Moment to Riverman, If I Had A Gun, Little By Little, Dead In The Water, Wonderwall and AKA What A Life!

Gallagher is a man apart. While his kid brother needs co-writers to do his work for him – making him a sort of indie Matt Cardle – Noel is the Tsar of Rock; the gaffer with the talent. He’s a once-in-a-generation figure. A man who, like Sir Paul McCartney and Paul Weller, continually looks to the future rather than the past. Eschewing such a rich back catalogue is easy for him because there are so many impressive new songs to play. Just as McCartney and Weller give airtime to their latest projects, so does he.

At present, he’s in the same rich vein of creative form that he was when he wrote Oasis’ classic debut, Definitely Maybe.

We ought to enjoy him while we can. They don’t make performers like him often.