Oasis, Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Matt Costa - Bell Centre, Montreal, Canada - Friday 5th September 2008

After visiting a few of what seemed like many Irish bars in that particular part of Montreal, we picked up our tickets and got into the Centre Bell just after 7pm. The music was supposed to start at 8:00, so we took our seats and waited. The arena was a fairly standard ice hockey arena, with lots of seats on the floor, and some steep stands on all sides. Being in Celine Dion's home town, all the signs in and around around the arena were in French above English, and all the staff tended to speak to you in French first. However, being an Oasis gig, the vast majority of the audience were obviously speaking English, and then some - there were lots of football shirts (even Man Utd shirts, worn by more than one clueless idiot) and union jacks in the crowd.

The first act on stage was Matt Costa, who started off as one man with a guitar (presumably Matt himself), but was then joined by a couple of other musicians. His set was pretty quiet, and struggled to fill the big venue, which was of course almost empty at the time. One or two of the songs sounded OK, but it was just the wrong venue for an act like that to be playing, so it wasn't anywhere near as good as I'm sure it would be in a smaller room.

As soon as Matt Costa finished, I went outside, and almost immediately heard cheering and music. Ryan Adams & The Cardinals were on stage - they must have got onto the stage within 5 minutes of Matt Costa leaving. I have liked Ryan Adams for a while, but never seen him before - he makes so many albums that I just can't keep up, and I have never gone to see him live because I'd always thought he'd play loads of stuff I didn't really know. So, this being a short-ish set (and for free), was a great chance to see what he was like.

What he was like, I thought, was fantastic. Ryan Adams' voice, guitar playing and of course songwriting is clearly very good indeed, and The Cardinals were tight, and really complemented him very well. Lots of the songs sounded very country influenced, which wasn't a surprise, and there were a good number of nice vocal harmonies as they went through the set. A few of the songs I knew, like Let It Ride, and a newer song called Two, were just incredible to listen to - they sounded quite haunting at times, and I really enjoyed their 40 minute or so set. In fact, it finished too quickly.

Oasis came on stage at around 10pm, quite a bit later than anticipated (but then Montreal does seem like quite a laid back, late night city). They started off with a very well received Rock N Roll Star, followed by Lyla and new single Shock Of The Lightning. Liam seemed to be on good form, having some healthy banter with the crowd; although Noel was pretty quiet throughout the gig, not really saying very much at all.

For the first time in a while, the set was heavy on some older songs that haven't been heard for a few years. Songs like Slide Away and Champagne Supernova were welcomed back into the Oasis set, and they finished it all up with I Am The Walrus again, for the first time in years.

Many of these older songs, along with the absolutely immense versions of tunes like Wonderwall, Supersonic and Morning Glory, really do help to remind you that there is little better than hearing Oasis play some of their best songs - and most bands that are around today would still struggle to write half as many great songs as Oasis did in around 1995. They might not have made a decent album for over 10 years, but the fantastic songs they wrote between 1994 and 1996 mean that, rightfully, they have their place in music history. Listening to Liam growling the words to Wonderwall and Champagne Supernova in particular, reminded me of 1996, when Oasis basically ruled the UK, were probably the biggest band in the world (for a short time at least), and seemed to be speaking for a whole nation and generation of people with every word that Liam sang. No decent albums since, but Oasis will always matter as a band because of that. A shame that many of the Canadians in the audience at this gig don't have the same memories, they missed out on something incredible, and this show brought it all back.

The gig was much better than I had expected it to be - Oasis were on good form, Liam was fully snarling as he does so well, and the guitars sounded great. They played 4 or 5 new songs, which I thought were a bit hit and miss - Falling Down is fantastic, Ain't Got Nothing isn't bad, the rest I wasn't sure about. I loved Shock Of The Lightning the first time I heard it - now it sounds like so many Oasis songs from the last 10 years - forgettable. But the new songs are something of an irrelevance, it will always be about the stuff from Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory - the 2 albums that make this band special.

The Montreal Gazette review a couple of days later seemed to approve of the gig - which was overshadowed somewhat a couple of days later when Noel was attacked on stage in Toronto. Very bizarre, and reading about that made me all the more glad that I got to see a proper set, with all the songs, and no attacks on guitarists. Judging by this show, Oasis seem to be back on form - the UK is in for a treat next month.