MTV Unplugged (Live At Hull City Hall)

A few weeks after this live performance in August 2019, Liam Gallagher told Apple Music, “I’m not an artist, and I don’t see myself as that. I leave that up to the likes of Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher and Johnny Marr. I’m a rock ’n’ roll singer. So that\'s what I do.” While he might resist suggestions that he’s turned his voice into an art form, Liam Gallagher has been one of rock ’n’ roll’s very best singers ever since Oasis ignited Britpop’s booster rockets in 1994. Here, he brings all his charisma and skill to an acoustic/orchestral setting more readily associated with those aforementioned “artists.” After all, it was Noel who was left to helm Oasis’ MTV Unplugged in 1996 when, with the band spiraling into one of their most fractious periods, Liam came down with a “sore throat” hours before the gig (not sore enough to prevent him heckling his brother from the gods, though). Twenty-three years later, by way of belated compensation, Liam played this Unplugged show at Hull’s City Hall. Singing a mix of solo and Oasis songs while assisted by the Urban Soul Orchestra’s string section and, on occasion, Oasis guitarist Bonehead, Liam shines as brightly with love and defiance, yearning and menace, as he’s ever done. “Sad Song,” once an acoustic, Noel-sung Oasis rarity, is elevated by gliding strings and Liam’s aching rasp—a voice that ensures that “Gone,” from Liam’s 2019 album *Why Me? Why Not.*, loses none of its bullish splendor against the orchestra’s cushioned backdrop. While he’s never struggled to make himself heard over a wall of guitars, this quieter setup emphasizes how Gallagher’s power and sparkle remain undimmed after all these years. It’s just what he does.

After infamously bailing out right before Oasis’s 1996 MTV Unplugged performance, the irascible, charismatic Britpop anti-hero gets a second chance.

The frontman takes to Hull, once the subject of Noel's ridicule, to bring us together with acoustic versions of Oasis classics and new favourites

Hours before the taping, the band announced Liam Gallagher would not be singing that evening due to a "sore throat," so his brother Noel wound up singing the set.

It took half his life for Liam Gallagher to get a second chance at performing an MTV Unplugged show. It was the stuff of tabloid wet dreams when the younger Gallagher had to miss Oasis’ appearance for MTV Unplugged in 1996, when he was 23, due to illnes

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