Live: Oasis at the Staples Center

It took Oasis only four songs Thursday night to start a ruckus at Staples Center, where a squad of security guards dragged a man from his front-row seat after he exchanged some unintelligible words with Liam Gallagher, the veteran English band's dependably cantankerous frontman.

Second (most of the time) to music, troublemaking has long been Oasis' stock in trade: When Gallagher and his guitarist brother Noel founded the group in the early 1990s, their project was pairing punk's spit-in-your-eye spirit with the compositional grandiloquence of classic '60s-era pop.

On huge-selling early records such as "Definitely Maybe" and "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" the Gallaghers used melody to disguise the fact that they were shredding your eardrums with noise; meanwhile, both siblings have taken fame as a welcome opportunity to exercise their loudmouth tendencies. Today the brothers are the only original members left in Oasis -- "Would you like to say hello to our 15th drummer?" Noel asked the crowd at Staples Center -- and it isn't hard to figure out why.

Thursday's show was the second of a current North American tour in support of the band's strong new album, "Dig Out Your Soul," which, after a decade of creeping irrelevance, makes a fairly convincing case that Oasis still knows the shortest distance between a smile and a snarl.

Actually, "smile" might be overstating the case: For most of their 105-minute set, the Gallaghers and their mates played with all the evident enthusiasm of a bunch of old-timers putting away after-work pints at the pub. By the end of the show, Liam had even done away with the customary song introduction and had begun simply naming songs before the band played them. (Of course, that might've been because most of Oasis' best songs, like "Wonderwall" and "Champagne Supernova," aren't about anything.)

Thanks to the miracle of guitar fuzz, that seeming indifference came off less like boredom and more like an appealing act of confrontation: Liam didn't need to beg us to sing along with "Cigarettes & Alcohol" and "Supersonic" because what choice did we really have in the matter?

Examined in close proximity to those indelible hits, new tunes such as "Waiting for the Rapture" and "To Be Where There's Life" lacked the anthemic brio that always distinguished Oasis from artier Britpop peers like Blur and Pulp. And though he's by far the band's most talented songwriter -- indeed, Oasis albums invariably suffer when he passes the pen to his brother or one of his bandmates -- Noel made for a rather ho-hum frontman during the handful of songs he sang.

As much as Liam needs Noel's melodic know-how, Noel needs Liam's front-and-center star power.

Opening the show with his sturdy alt-country backing band the Cardinals, Ryan Adams tried to work a similar mixture of antagonism and affection. Here's another darn sunshiney anthem, he said (in slightly more colorful language) before playing "Go Easy," a typically melancholy cut from this year's fine "Cardinology."

Apparently irritated by the audience's reluctance to receive his music with the hushed reverence it deserves, Adams retreated to sarcasm (not to mention bizarre, possibly booze-fueled ruminations on Jethro Tull and "the tyranny and horrors of math"). As Thursday's headliners demonstrated, though, that's a weapon that requires experience to handle.

--Mikael Wood

Photo: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Susana Morrison]

I'm an Oasis fan (and now Cardinals fan, after seeing their fine performance) and was frankly appalled at your simplistic, ignorant review of the show. I agree with Joe; do your research on bands before you review them. The brothers Gallagher were doing what they do best: rocking out and not caring about whether muppets like you get it.

And with regard to your offensive attack on Ryan Adams' sobriety, shame on you. Retract your comments as they are wrong and tasteless!

[Mel]

I agree that the comment about "booze-fueled" may have been a bit insensitive, but I have to say that something was wrong with that guy... EVERYONE in the suite I was in agreed that he was acting weird, talking incoherently... so I don't think he was far off from assuming that something was wrong. Booze fueled or not, that guy was off. Anyways, it's his opinion.... insensitive as it may have been... get over it. He's allowed to say something negative - that's what reviewers do.

[oasiszealot]

I think it's safe to say that no one who reviews anything related to Oasis in the States is remotely a fan of Oasis. They still think their music sounds like something off the first two albums (when it has evolved in its own way over the years) or that it should ONLY sound like something from those two.
And they can't embrace the energy that they give on stage because they think everyone has to act like U2 to be a "true rock star."
I've learned to ignore the bad reviewers Stateside and continue to support Liam, Noel, Gam & Andy as best as one fan can, by going to as many shows across the globe as possible.
See you true fans at the next gig.
xoxo -oasiszealot

[Cherry Lane]

I was at the show and ONLY to see Ryan Adams (and the Cardinals).

That is just the way he is- I thought he was in good mood and played an exceptional show geared towards a Los Angeles crowd that (primarily) was there to see Oasis.

He is amazingly talented and I am so proud of him for staying sober and for letting fans in on this aspect of his life.

This review was utterly offensive in every way and I hope he comes back to LA to hedline after this.

[ray bretman]

Being a Tull fan, and barely knowing Ryan Adams from Ryan Leaf, I am hesitantly curious as to what his ruminations on Tull were. Were it not for Aqualung and Locomotive Breath, I imagine at least half of the audience would have been wondering, who's this Jethro guy? Maybe they were anyway, its 35 years since Tull were as popular as Oasis, and probably Ryan Adams are, and its in most respects way better to be mid sized, you get to play in actual music halls as opposed to sports arenas. Did he say they suck or that their crowd is properly respectful, or maybe Ryan is using Ian Anderson as a role model, who has always been deadly sober.

[Rhonda]

Do these lousy critics actually get paid for writing? Huh, what a great gig. How do I sign up?

[TweenerSongs]

oasis not as 'artsy' as blur & pulp?
this guy obviously has no idea what he's talking about.
saying you didn't like the show is one thing -- to each his own, of course -- but to say something like that simply proves that he has no idea whatsoever what oasis does or has done. . .like someone who's only heard the singles.

come on, brother. it's all about the research!

T