The Gallagher brothers so dislike each other that they dissolved Oasis, started new bands and released new records. They won’t even talk about each other.
Yet at Noel Gallagher’s New York concert debut of his new group, the High Flying Birds, at the Beacon Theatre, he let us know just how he felt about his sibling by opening the gig with “(It’s Good) To Be Free,” a lesser-known Oasis song.
Noel’s leap from Oasis guitarist to lead singer for the High Flying Birds was probably difficult, but it paid off at Monday’s showcase.
Noel, who’s still strumming, is an appealing frontman whose vocals are similar enough to his brother’s that old Oasis tunes ounded intact as well as consistent with the new numbers from the High Flying Birds’ just-released record.
Of the fighting Gallaghers, whose stormy relationship finally shattered in a 2009 backstage brawl, Liam is the better singer and Noel the better writer — penning nearly all the great Oasis tunes.
Liam’s new band, Beady Eye, also released a record this year, and at his Webster Hall gig this summer, he didn’t play any Oasis tunes. But at the Beacon, Noel shuffled Oasis classics such as “Wonderwall” and “Supersonic” with freshly minted numbers of his own, including “If I Had a Gun . . .” and “Everybody’s on the Run.”
And as frontmen, Liam is stoic and sneering while Noel proved to be affable and surprisingly playful with the NYC fans. Early in the set, Noel, still wrapped in his leather jacket, wiped his brow of sweat and commented to his four-man band, “We’ve got a rowdy bunch tonight. I thought New York was too cool for school.’’ Later, just after he laid down the very Beatles-esque tune “Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks,” and the sold-out house chanted his name, he dryly joked, “You sound like little dogs barking, at best, seals.”
Barking wasn’t limited to the audience. On the new tune “A K A . . . What a Life,” Gallagher had trouble reaching, and then sustaining, the chorus’ high notes. Despite that, the tune rocked hard and its intent to make the party rage made up for its cringe-inducing top end.
Of the old material, the stripped-down voice-and-acoustic-guitar version of “Wonderwall” was terrific. And its power was mirrored in a new tune, “The Death of You and Me.”
While this was a shakedown gig to work out the glitches and the song sequencing in the set, it was also a rare opportunity to see the High Flying Birds up close in a small theater before they start to roost in arenas.