Oasis - Live in Oakland (18th June 1997)

Oasis Location: Oakland, California, U.S.A Venue: Alameda County Coliseum Date: 18th June 1997 Source: Audience Recording After playing at the KROQ Weenie Roast, the lads support U2 for two nights in Oakland on their tour supporting the Popmart album. It definitely seems that the band were in awe of U2’s magnificent stage design as the Popmart stage was no exception, and it would explain why the oncoming European Tour would have the most creative stage and lighting rig design Oasis ever had. The shows were quite the jump for the band as it was their largest audience number in the U.S by quite a margin as the Alameda County Coliseum shows had sold about 3/4 of the 85,000 seats across the two nights and it’s evident right from the get-go as Liam and Noel are pulling out lots of banter for the audience and the performance is really tight all-round and a very enjoyable listen. This early Be Here Now Tour period is very interesting every member sounds completely fresh and new and it almost feels as if all the grudges the band had felt during the previous year had been dumped at the door at the commencement of the Be Here Now shows. Liam sounds absolutely fantastic much like the previous show and has this perfect blend of power and maintainability which keeps his voice very fresh and clean throughout the show while being able to go all out on the high notes. Bonehead, Guigsy and Alan are the usual but still that edge of freshness can be heard in their playing. Noel is playing very well too and would only improve, though he has a bit of trouble on the vocals in Acquiesce. They debut two songs from the new album, those being D’You Know What I Mean and Be Here Now. Both are played very well minus one or two hiccups and would prove to be very popular numbers on the oncoming run of shows. Roll With It makes a return as does Live Forever and Cast No Shadow. Due to Liam’s adamance of not performing acoustically, Cast No Shadow is performed with the full band on electric guitars similarly to Wonderwall. I personally think it sounds fantastic and has an air of psychedelia to it, even if it loses the intimacy of the acoustic arrangement. Overall, this is a great first night and though it’s identity has been mistaken for a long time (thanks for Boot It Up for addressing this, previously i’d never known about it!) it’s definitely one to check out. Setlist: Acquiesce - 0:00 Supersonic - 4:10 Morning Glory - 9:17 Roll With It - 14:01 D’You Know What I Mean? (first performance) - 18:30 Some Might Say - 24:49 Cast No Shadow (first full band electric version) - 30:22 Wonderwall - 35:05 Be Here Now (first performance) - 39:37 Don’t Look Back In Anger - 44:48 Live Forever - 50:07 Champagne Supernova - 55:30 Thanks to all tapers and uploaders! #oasis #oasislive #liamgallagher #noelgallagher