Beady Eye – In Concert at Brixton Academy – April 3, 2011 – XFM Radio Network – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
Beady Eye in concert this weekend. Reminded and remiss that I haven’t posted any Liam Gallagher, while posting lots of Noel Gallagher (via High Flying Birds), I decided to rectify that tonight with a concert featuring the sadly short-lived Beady Eye, recorded at a Benefit Concert for the Japan Disaster Relief on April 3, 2011 at Brixton Academy in London.
With the baffling and acrimonious split between the warring Gallagher Brothers and the scorched-earth destruction of Oasis, any kind of reconciliation on the parts of the brothers and the reuniting of Oasis was impossible to conceive, at best. So it was left up to the individual efforts of Noel and Liam to forge ahead and strike out on their own. Beady Eye consisted of the remnants of Oasis with Liam at the helm, while Noel would resurface with High Flying Birds in 2011.
Both bands have had commendable track records and well-received albums. Beady Eye was declared an instant masterpiece, on the par with (What’s The Story) Morning Glory in overall execution and acceptance. Noel collaborated with Amorphous Androgynous before forming High Flying Birds, and that too was met with a great amount of enthusiasm.
But this weekend it’s Liam’s Beady Eye in concert, coming just two months after of the release of their debut album, Different Gear, Still Speeding and the pressure of a lot of anticipation.
Reviews of the album had been generally mixed-to-favorable. According to review aggregator site Metacritic, the album has an average score of 65%.
Reviewing for Rolling Stone, Stacey Anderson, who gave the album 2.5 out of 5 stars, said “On Different Gear, the band attempts stripped down, Stones-y rock but ends up with ‘Be Here Now’-style guitar bluster and Liam’s blithely boilerplate lyrics”. Drowned in Sound awarded the album 4/10 saying that “By and large it radiates the stolid competence of a band on auto-pilot, with a few flashes of likeable enthusiasm.” The Independent on Sunday gave it 2/5 stars. Simon Goddard, reviewing for Q, gave the album four-out-of-five stars and described it as “the strongest record Liam’s made” since (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, while Garry Mulholland, in his three-star review for Uncut, denied that the album “remotely matches” Definitely Maybe, but felt the album was a step in the right direction. Mojo also gave the album four stars out of five, citing Gallagher’s singing as a highlight. The Fly, however, remarked that the album was “dull”, and a disappointment, while Scotland on Sunday added that Noel Gallagher is missed as a songwriting partner. The BBC and The Independent both commented that the album bests Oasis’ later music, if not lacking innovation from the previous group, while The Sun praised the album’s simplicity and variety, citing “Bring the Light” as a surprising highlight, a comment that NME repeated. The album is generally agreed to have surpassed expectations, with Mojo remarking that the album “shaped up better than many imagined,” and Q saying that it “decimates all negative preconceptions.”
Now it’s your turn – crank it up and give it a listen.
