Britpop under Council Skies: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds play Portsmouth
Noel Gallagher and his band took to the Portsmouth Guildhall stage for an unforgettable performance.
Photo: Press
Following 2023’s fourth full-length album, Council Skies, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have been on the road in Europe, and March 2024 saw the former Oasis guitarist’s band visit Portsmouth, embarking on a night of indie rock mastery that stretched back thirty years.
The night saw Gallagher rifle through an eclectic mix of more recent, solo material and anthems from his former band’s glory days. Portsmouth masses were treated to Oasis cuts like Going Nowhere, Talk Tonight and Little By Little, before culminating in transcendental performances of Live Forever and Don’t Look Back in Anger.
The setlist was well-crafted, but by no means perfect. Fans of the Birds’ 2017 album Who Built the Moon? were left somewhat disappointed; it’s only live representative taking the form of Dead in the Water – which, to be fair, is a beauty. But no title track, no Holy Mountain or apocalyptic It’s A Beautiful World. The Dying of the Light and Ballad of the Mighty I from 2015’s Chasing Yesterday, the group’s sophomore release, didn’t get a play either, as was endlessly fresh Everybody’s On The Run from the group’s seminal debut.
Nonetheless, newer fans and diehard veterans of Noel G were treated to powerhouse after powerhouse from across his career, going back steadily through time. The group’s latest release, Council Skies, translates effortlessly onto the stage; no mean feat given the album’s ‘open’ sound and frequent use of horn sections. Pretty Boy – which opened the show – sounded like a New Order deep cut remixed for the modern day, exactly like it should. The title track was full of nostalgic vigour, and We’re Gonna Get There In The End was every inch the neo-Beatles ode to hope that it proved on the finished record.
It’s always a ballsy move, opening with all the new stuff; particularly when half the people watching you are only interested in what went on in the ‘90s. But if there were nerves among the Birds, you couldn’t tell. Each of them calm, composed, and at the top of their game – not least of all Gallagher, for whom stagecraft is by now child’s play.
The symbiotic relationship between band and audience was alive and well too, with the former Oasis guitarist bantering back and forth about the Guildhall’s home football team and picks off the setlist. The thought must have crossed everyone’s mind at some point that night, that this was a staggeringly small venue for the calibre of the Live Forever writer. But that sense of intimacy only amplified the energy, not stifled it, and everyone left the Guildhall a giddy, carefree twenty-year old, swaggering back to their everyday lives.