Noel Gallagher and his High Flying Birds – Live Review – The Piece Hall, Halifax

By Steve Crabtree, August 2024

Well, I’ve been to a decent number of gigs at The Piece Hall over the last five years. Some busy, some with plenty of room to breathe. But it’s never been as packed as it was for Noel Gallagher and His High Flying Birds, making a welcome return to Halifax after playing here two years ago.

The sun was strong, bathing the 6,000+ of us who had little room for movement by the time the last people had filtered into the old cloth hall. The atmosphere in the place was just as it should be, a proper music gig feeling, knowing that we were going to watch one of the coolest musicians to ever come out of the UK. The Council Skies tour has been going for just over a year now, and by the time it’d got to Halifax, it was holding up strong.

After a nice support slot from Andrew Cushin, the brains behind Oasis came on stage to a heroic welcome at 9pm. With no words and little acknowledgement, he opened up with ‘Pretty Boy’, followed by the ‘Council Skies’ title track, before giving us another six songs from the High Flying Birds back catalogue.

The energetic ‘You Know We Can’t Go Back’  was a personal favourite of mine, and ‘AKA…What A Life!’ was universally loved by the whole of the Piece Hall. Can you believe that track’s 12 years old now?

“The pantomime villain”

I don’t need to tell anyone what Noel Gallagher brings to the music scene. If you don’t know, you can’t be taught.  His music and his lyrics are safe and simple, and he makes that work so well.  He doesn’t try too hard to be too clever, because he doesn’t need to. And it’s been that way for a little over 30 years.

But what you DO get at every show is the pantomime villain in Noel Gallagher. He didn’t take long to bring it out in Halifax either, slating Yorkshire Day and asking what happens on our day. He followed that up by asking if we had a misplaced attraction for sheep. The banter had begun between crowd and artist and we weren’t disappointed. Despite the man saying very little to us between tunes, it was a welcomed bit of patter.

So, with the first half of his Piece Hall set awash with High Flying Birds numbers, the second half brought us his work with Oasis.  And, for me, the Oasis selection was perfect.

Their early b-sides are often regarded by many as some of their best work, and I agree with that.  Some of those tunes made up the bulk of this section of Noel Gallagher’s setlist. ‘Going Nowhere’ and ‘Talk Tonight’ were up first, and that was followed by ‘Whatever’ (not a b-side, but not an album track either) and ‘Half The World Away’.  ‘The Masterplan’ was a masterstroke for this set, as was ‘Little By Little’.

“In fine voice”

As the main set was coming to an end, there was one slight blip. I’ve never heard a decent cover of Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, and I still haven’t. Noel Gallagher and his High Flying Birds version of a classic Manchester tune didn’t do it (or them) any justice, and for me it felt very flat.  Vocally and musically, it didn’t work and wasn’t needed in such a great set.

However, bringing out ‘Stand By Me’, ‘Live Forever’ and ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ in the encore brought us back up to the high-flying levels of the rest of the night, and had every single one of the sell-out crowd singing along, in fine voice.

At the end of his show he told us he loved us, and promised that wasn’t just because it was Yorkshire Day.  I think the feeling was mutual from this Halifax crowd, who went home more than happy, after seeing what must be one of the best music shows of the summer.

images: Cuffe & Taylor