Oasis
Live a Roma 7/2/2006

Tum tum tam, tutum tum tam... maybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee… live forever. What a great song. Yet, as I look around, I can't help but feel a sense of disgust, like someone who accidentally ends up as the clack in an episode of TRL. Okay, my love for Oasis is a reflection of what the people who introduced me to their first albums felt; I never lived it in the present. In '94, I was ten years old and certainly couldn't grasp the impact of their entrance onto the British and world music scene. But here, we're exaggerating; live forever is undoubtedly older than half the people surrounding me.

It makes me think of an interview a few years ago with Noel Gallagher, granted to His Idiocy Enrico Silvestrin, where he lamented, with the rhetorical elegance he's known for, about the hordes of kids crowding their concerts. "What a big jerk," I think. The failure of Oasis reveals itself in all its decadence before my eyes, both above and below the stage. Liam Gallagher grabs his crotch multiple times, such a provocative gesture, for the embarrassed hilarity of the girls who are now his audience. Yet, what remains of Oasis is the strength of their past. The energy of "Bring it on Down," completely ignored by most of the kids, who instead get excited for the unbearable "Lyla." The sweetness of "Masterplan" and the other classics from the Manchester boys, moments when you're almost glad to have been there, songs that in their set list mix embarrassingly with the rest of the repertoire. Live, the songs from their latest album reveal themselves for what they truly are: completely useless. The blatant arrogance of the two brothers is no longer funny, no longer provocative, it's simply ridiculous. In particular, the frontman seems like a foul-mouthed clown, incredibly unaware of how grotesque his attitude is compared to the audience he’s addressing.

The thing is, Noel, if you write songs for kids, it will be kids who listen to them. You're finished, unfortunately. And you ended badly. Someone once said: "it's better to burn out than to fade away." They weren't wrong.