Britain's biggest complainers fly into Italy to do a high-voltage show and MTV special.
MILAN, Italy -- As
Liam and Noel
Gallagher stepped off
the plane at Bologna
Airport last Saturday,
19-year-old Laura
Liberatore stood
mesmerized, her eyes
focused on the brothers who she'd felt she'd known for
years.
Yet all she really knew about the Gallaghers to this point she learned through the music, photos and some articles she'd come across. Now was her big chance to move one giant step closer to rock's most notorious musical brothers -- to actually speak to them, if just to let them know how she felt.
"I got the chance to speak with the band. They were really nice," said Liberatore, who'd arrived at the airport there from Foggia, about 500 miles away, to join the country's most avid Oasis watchers. A small group of fans such as Liberatore came from all over Italy to meet the pop-rock Manchester quintet as they landed in Bologna that day.
And when Oasis came through the door of a big red telephone box standing in the middle of the stage at the Forum Arena in Milan the following night, more than 10,000 adoring fans exploded into a cacophony of screams. The show, one of two sellouts here, was the second on the Italian leg of the band's European tour as Oasis had played in Bologna on their first night.
The band kicked off with the title track of their current album Be Here Now; "Sing a song to me/ One from Let It Be," cried singer Liam Gallagher, as the giant clock at the right side of the stage spun backward. While Oasis continue to make reference to their Fab Four-fathers, the Beatles, in their lyrics and their lifestyle, some fans just don't see it: "The Beatles?" replied Marco Tritano, a 17-year-old Liam Gallagher look-alike. "They're a different thing, coming from a different age."
Nonetheless, that night the Gallaghers and gang drove fans into a Beatlemania-style frenzy.
As the band moved through a series of hits such as "Supersonic," "Some Might Say," "Roll With It" and "D'You Know What I Mean", Liam Gallagher strutted and jumped around the stage, returning to the microphone only to sing. His hands crossed behind his back, he stood with his legs spread slightly and his knees bent, just as he always does. On the contrary, his brother was motionless, too busy erecting a solid wall of sound with each wave of his arm across his guitar. Drummer Alan White and the rest of the band stood apart from the brothers, clearly overshadowed by the duo.
Noel Gallagher's electric guitar turned the arena into a cathedral, the noise filling every crevice. The stage, complete with a British booth and other traditional English symbols pictured on the Be Here Now cover, rose up like a dome-shaped vault. An electrified Oasis turned up the juice for "Wonderwall," plugging in and transforming the strummy melodic number into something bigger and better. "We just got tired of playing some same old songs in the same old way," Noel Gallagher told MTV the following day. "That's why we changed 'Wonderwall.' I hope everybody liked it."
There was little doubt of that.
n fact, practically everyone in attendance turned on and tuned in to the updated electric melodies on songs such as "All Around The World" or the encore "Champagne Super Nova". Fans raised their arms and sang along, screaming with approval the second they recognized a tune. Even for B-sides, "Stay Young" or "Acquiesce," which closed the two-hour set, recognition was almost instantaneous.
At the first inkling of the closing notes, die-hard fans shouted for more and got it. Still not satisfied, some chased the band around Milan the following day, bringing to mind scenes from the Beatles' mid-'60s film, A Hard Day's Night. It was quintessential Oasis, playing up their Beatles best, courtesy of fanatical fans such as 21-year-old Isabella Basso.
"Last night's performance was great, better than the first one in Bologna. Liam was definitely more inspired," Basso said, as she waited in the front of the hotel Oasis were rumored to be staying. She stood there with a small group of fans, praying for the Gallaghers to emerge.
Meanwhile, about 200 lucky fans had gotten their hands on the coveted tickets for a recording of Sonic, a regional MTV show that night. Before the performance, Noel Gallagher played a couple of songs on his own: "Stand By Me" and the B-side "Talk Tonight."
The soft strum emitted from his acoustic guitar stood in stark contrast with the band's huge and electric show the night before. But on camera, it was the same old Noel Gallagher. "I haven't played for such a small audience in two years," he said during the program. Then, joking about his brother's absence, he added, "He's not shy. He's only terrified by his mother. And by his wife, of course."