Live Review: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Newcastle Arena, 23/02/2011

It's taken a while, but now that the waters have finally settled following Oasis' acrimonious split it's pretty clear which Gallagher has emerged on top. While Liam has spent the past year toiling away in medium-sized venues with his mundane Beady Eye project, older brother Noel has dived straight into the arenas on his first full tour since the breakup, with this packed Newcastle date doing much to confirm that enduring popularity. The promise of old Oasis classics has no doubt helped his cause, but the same could be said of the runaway success of his Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds album, which kick-started a long overdue solo career back in October. As well as being met with a wave of critical approval, the record also achieved the improbable in that it toppled Adele from the summit of the UK's album chart, if only temporarily - and it was that success which rendered this show so much more than a mere nostalgia strip.

Album Review: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

Noel Gallagher's come in for some harsh treatment over the past decade or so. It's no secret that his output hasn't exactly matched the standards he set himself in the mid-nineties, when he banged out classic songs almost at will, equally it's not been the creative drought many have claimed. The final two Oasis albums, Don't Believe The Truth and Dig Out Your Soul were probably their best since the height of cool Britannia, and even their lowest trough, 2003's Heathen Chemistry contained at least three brilliant reminders of the songwriter-in-chief's genius within the field. That ceaseless ability to produce classic singles meant that even the band's least inspired albums weren't without their worth, and also means that this solo debut - his first move since the band's sticky demise - is the first time in quite a while that Gallagher senior has actually had a point to prove.