Last November, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds released their third album, Who Built the Moon?. Last Wednesday, the band returned to Atlanta at the Tabernacle behind the new album. An enthusiastic crowd welcomed Noel Gallagher, not just for the Oasis covers, but to catch a beloved artist on top of his game.
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds were a tight knit unit with up to 11 members on stage at any one time, complete with a scissors player and horns section. The band’s latest album shows Noel hitting his stride in a more neo-psychedlia direction that definitely came to fruition as a full live band. With an organ and a multitude of other instruments on stage, the band took on a more roots rock format that showed off more intricacies of the music on Noel’s HFB cuts, while still giving the Noel Gallagher that the world has come to love.
Starting off the set playing straight through the four opening tracks on Who Built the Moon?, including the latest single “It’s A Beautiful World”, the band gave the loving crowd a strong statement that this isn’t Oasis. Throughout the night, Noel of course would interject his own witty banter with the audience, calling out a kid he spotted on the balcony, “Is school out? How old are you?”.
From there, the band started mixing in tracks off of their first two albums before bringing the first Oasis cover, “Little by Little” and “The Importance of Being Idle”. Next up, Noel paired it all down for an acoustic rendition of “Dead in the Water”, which quieted the crowd for an absolutely stunning moment.
Soon after that, Noel would announce “This one is for my wife” as the band went into “She Taught Me How to Fly” off the new album. Earlier that day, Noel’s brother Liam made news by saying Noel’s wife “is the reason Oasis is no longer“. While I suspect there was a good chance this song would have been on the setlist anyways, it was a not so subtle answer and reassurance of just what his relationship with his wife means to him.
Next, the band would go into two more Oasis covers, “Half the World Away” and one of those really big hits, you know the one, “Wonderwall”. When those first few chords hit of “Wonderwall”, the Tabernacle crowd new exactly what was coming. The place was lit, singing at the top of their lungs with the band. The thing with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds though, this isn’t just an Oasis cover band, instead, the band keeps the heart and core of the originals, but uses the vast musicianship on stage to add expansive elements to the classics. Even with small changes to the songs, the crowd would quickly find their way to catch up and be right in tune with the band.
Noel Gallagher’s HFB ended the set with “AKA…What a Life” off of their 2011 self titled debut album, before heading off of the stage. What seemed like the longest break between the first set and encore that I had seen in a while, had the crowd chanting and hollering as they waited for the band to return. Once the band returned, Noel let his backup singer take front and center on “The Right Stuff” off of 2015’s Chasing Yesterday. With her hallow vocals and the sultry horns section in full effect, the song sounded like a haunting b-side from Dark Side of the Moon.
The rest of the encore consisted of covers from there on. While there was certainly no shortage (see everyone in the audience) of people happy as hell to hear Oasis’ “Go Let It Out”, and then, of course, “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, the crowd on this night were just as enthusiastic towards Noel’s solo material. You could tell that Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have also left an impact, which prompted Noel to declare “best night of the tour so far!”.
On “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, damn was it an experience at the Tabernacle in Atlanta. When this venue is on fire, with everyone in the audience in sync as one (it happens quite a bit there), there isn’t a better venue in America, and that’s exactly what you saw on the Oasis hit. Everyone there was singing at the top of their lungs, and it was a beautiful thing. 23 years later, that is still one great song, and probably just as relevant today as it was back in 95. But that wasn’t the end of the night though, Noel would leave one final message with Atlanta, covering The Beatles “All You Need Is Love”, and we all sang the night away, together. Thank you Noel.
Check out more photos by Mike Gerry:
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Upcoming Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds Tour Dates:
03/09 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan
03/10 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
03/12 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Orpheum
04/22 – Brighton, UK @ Brighton Centre
04/24 – Glasgow, UK @ The SSE Hydro
04/25 – Aberdeen, UK @ BHGE Arena
04/27 – London, UK @ The SSE Arena Wembley
04/30 – Nottingham, UK @ Motorpoint Arena
05/01 – Birmingham, UK @ Birmingham Arena
05/03 – Newcastle, UK @ Metro Radio Arena
05/04 – Manchester, UK @ Manchester Arena
05/06 – Cardiff, UK @ Motorpoint Arena
05/07 – Leeds, UK @ First Direct Arena
05/09 – Belfast, UK @ The SSE Arena
05/10 – Dublin, IE @ 3Arena
