Album Review: Oasis - Familiar To Millions
Oasis - Familiar To Millions (2000)
Track Listing:
Disc One:
1. Fucking In The Bushes
2. Go Let It Out
3. Who Feels Love?
4. Supersonic
5. Shakermaker
6. Acquiesce
7. Step Out
8. Gas Panic!
9. Roll With It
10. Stand By Me
Disc Two:
1. Wonderwall
2. Cigarettes & Alcohol
3. Don't Look Back In Anger
4. Live Forever
5. Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
6. Champagne Supernova
7. Rock 'N Roll Star
8. Helter Skelter
Okay, so I gave the coke-fueled butt brothers a bit of a pasting here, but they came back with glowing praise from me here (as if anyone here actually clicks through the link-whoring. I could be posting free porn links and you still wouldn't click). Unfortunately, early signs on the latest Oasis effort aren't too promising, but I need time to listen to it anyway. To tide the frothing four regular readers over, here's a review of the Oasis live album, Familiar To Millions.
After the absolute brilliance of instrumental opener, "Fucking In The Bushes", we hear Liam Gallagher stumble onstage stinking of booze, and instantly becomes the cool anti-hero by greeting the London audience with: "Allooo Manchester!" I question opening the set proper with "Go Let It Out", but since it was the current single at the time of this show, it makes sense to get it out of the way quickly.
What follows over the next couple hours (two discs) is something that's really good to listen to if you've already downed a bottle of whiskey, bourbon, vodka, hell... even a couple 40's of King Cobra would do the trick. The onstage banter between Liam and the crowd is worth the price of admission alone, just to see what the clown is going to say next. There's a lazy "Cheers!" after every song, and the rest is a barrage of "fuck", "fuck this", "fuck that", and "fuck you" with garbled Mancunian speech that the rest of us need subtitles to comprehend. The banter, along with the echoed sound quality that could only come from a concert at Wembley Stadium (RIP), captures the fun swagger of the show.
The setlist manages to cater to the diehard Cool Brittania fanboys and the Dad-rockers who inevitably showed up at the same time (See b-side "Acquiesce" for the former and practially everything off Morning Glory for the later). Although there's a couple of pointless cover songs (Neil Young and The Beatles), Familiar To Millions is mostly a decent set list of drunken karaoke classics with the guitars turned up to 11. Just remember to check your brain and your car keys at the door before indulging.
6.5/10
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