Noel Gallagher has unsurprisingly taken a pot shot at brother Liam and his band Beady Eye for their performance of Oasis’ hit Wonderwall at the London Olympics Closing Ceremony on Sunday night.
At at an intimate War Child benefit gig at London’s Dingwalls last night, Noel performed his former band’s most memorable hit (Wonderwall) and pointedly dedicated the song to “Stratford’s finest Oasis tribute band”.
Prior to the show, Noel told London radio station Xfm how the organisers had to get his agreement for the track (which he wrote) to be used by his brother/former bandmate’s new band.
“They had to re-record it and then send it to me,” he said.
“I did play a bit of cat and mouse with them for a few days – I took it ’til Friday night at ten o’clock before I said yes and they were shitting it. Not Beady Eye, the organisers.
“Because I had to say yeah and I was like ‘meh…it’s alright… I’m not sure with this new string arrangement’, and they were like ‘fuck! the gig’s on Sunday’, so I was like ‘okay, alright, you can have it then’.”
Noel admitted to presenter Danny Wallace that he had also turned down a request to perform at the event.
“I was asked to do it a long time ago and… to be frank…they were being so secretive about it,” he explained.
“I was like… ‘who else is playing?’ and they were like ‘we can’t tell you, you’ve got to sign a confidentiality agreement’ – it’s like it’s the Iran nuclear programme or something.
“I mean what do they think is going to happen? ITV are going to get hold of it and put on a gig the night before with the same bill?
“And then they wanted me to do it acoustically and then they wanted me to mime… and I’m all for miming in TV shows – I’m all for that – but if you’re in a stadium with 80,000 people and you’re pretending? I can play live!
“One of the organisers… I said [to him] ‘why do you want me to mime?’ and he said ‘it’s a big gig’. Really?! I do this shit for a living! In the end, I was just like…you know what, I’d rather watch it on the telly.”
