Liam Gallagher isn’t afraid of playing Oasis classics

If there were any concerns about Liam Gallagher’s solo show, the former Oasis star answered them before he even swaggered on stage.

Not Oasis.

That has been the easy — and frankly lazy — way Liam Gallagher’s solo gigs have generally reviewed.

It is always going to be hard for Liam and brother Noel to escape the shadow of one of the biggest bands of the past 30 years.

But if Monday night’s gig at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre is anything to go by, the younger Gallagher brother isn’t afraid of the Oasis back catalogue.

Eleven of his 19 song set were Oasis tracks, with the largely expat crowd treated to classics such as Wonderwall and Champagne Supernova.

Liam makes his intentions known before even swaggering onto the stage.

The Oasis instrumental F**kin’ In the Bushes plays before Liam enters the stage. Then when he arrives, he launches straight into Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.

Naturally, not many crowd members sang along to songs from Liam’s solo career, with tracks from his new album Why Me? Why Not making up the bulk of the non-Oasis songs.

But that’s a problem any band faces after enough years.

It’s why Regurgitator’s song I Like Your Old Stuff Better Than Your New Stuff is still relevant today.

It would be easy to say the crowd not knowing every word to Liam’s solo tracks was proof they’d much rather just listen to Oasis.

Liam Gallagher performs at the Enmore Theatre. Picture: Mark Metcalfe/WireImage

But even in Oasis’s final years, the crowds were more into the classics from Definitely Maybe and (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? than the later albums.

It was something Noel even joked with the crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground last month when he opened for U2.

After playing Little By Little from Oasis’s third final album, he mocked the subdued crowd response by saying fans had already stopped listening to them by then.

And it’s probably why the most recent Oasis song Liam played was from 2000; the majority were from the band’s first two albums.

It’s going to take a few more years before crowds are singing every word to Shockwave like they do for the underrated Stand By Me.

The crowd singing Roll With It — once voted the worst Oasis song by the band’s fans — shows there will always been a thirst for the 1990s hits.

But it’s something that doesn’t seem lost on Liam.

Before going into another Oasis song, he asks if there are any fans of the band in the crowd.

And the two encores are just wall-to-wall Oasis songs; Liam seems to know the crowd wants to hear the classics at the end of the gig.

He gets the crowd to sing Noel’s part in Acquiesce, the B-side getting a better reception than Australian favourite Wonderwall.

Liam’s voice has held up pretty well for someone who has been belting it out for more than 25 years.

Not exactly subtle. Picture: Mark Metcalfe/WireImage

But he even apologises for his voice before Champagne Supernova in the encore and leaves the high notes for the crowd.

It’s not an Oasis gig. And with the feud between the two brothers showing no signs of ending, there won’t be Oasis gigs any time soon.

But it has one of the key elements the best Oasis gigs had — the crowd singing along to songs they’ve been listening to their whole lives.

And while Liam may not hit the high notes like he used to, he has more than enough swagger and strut to make up for it.

Liam Gallagher plays at Melbourne’s Margaret Court Arena tonight, Meredith music festival, Woodside’s Bird In Hand Winery and Fremantle Arts Centre

Set list: Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, Halo, Shockwave, Wall of Glass, Come Back To Me, Morning Glory, Columbia, Stand By Me, Once, The River, Gas Panic!, Wonderwall, (encore), Acquiesce, Roll With It, Supersonic, Champagne Supernova, (encore 2), Cigarettes & Alcohol.