Noel Gallagher picks the only person to replace John Lennon: “It won’t be the same”
There’s always been a certain magic in seeing a band work off each other. Even if they aren’t the greatest musicians in the world, there’s usually that unspoken connection that they have whenever they play together that puts them one notch above everyone else when it comes time for them to take the stage. And while there’s no sense in replacing anyone in The Beatles, Noel Gallagher said that there was a major way that he could see everything working out.
Granted, The Beatles’ hype had only begun when Oasis started making the rounds in the mid-1990s. Definitely Maybe had only dropped a few months prior to the remaining members of the Fab Four working on two unreleased John Lennon songs for the Anthology project, so it wasn’t like anyone had lost their hunger for any new music from history’s most beloved rock and roll band.
But as much as Noel may have loved the idea of hearing songs like ‘Free As a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’, there was still a lot of unknown regarding what the band were going to do next. The opportunity to sell some more records was still up in the air, but was anyone expecting a band that hadn’t been on the same page for the better part of two decades to suddenly find some time together to make another world tour?
While any such announcement probably would have sent fans into a frenzy for tickets before they had even come out, Noel was a little bit hesitant when Anthology was announced. He hadn’t been much of a fan of everything that the band did since their solo days, but anyone who thought that Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney couldn’t make something of the John Lennon tape was fighting a losing battle.
The only snag for Noel came when word got around that the band could go on tour to celebrate the music they played with John. Even though a show with ‘The Threetles’ playing exclusively McCartney, Harrison and Starr tunes would have still sold in droves, there was still room for other people to fill the role of Lennon’s spot, but once Noel heard rumours that his mortal enemy could be a part of The Beatles, he thought it would be a terrible mistake.
For him, the one way the band could have had some credibility would have been to keep it in the family for any potential touring dates, saying, “Two of the ‘replacements’ I’ve heard mentioned are Phil Collins and Elvis Costello, and if that’s the case, they can fuck right off. The only person who could conceivably do it is Julian Lennon, and even then, it won’t be the same. Having said that, if Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr ever appear together, I’ll make sure to blag a ticket.”
Julian might not be as prolific with hit songs as the rest of the band, but the fact that his voice does sound like his dear old dad makes him a decent candidate. Even listening to him perform on behalf of his father with Chuck Berry, hearing him sing along to ‘Johnny B Goode’ was enough to make casual fans rub their eyes to make sure that the younger version of John didn’t miraculously appear onstage.
Still, any way of capturing the band’s chemistry through a modern lens is impossible. That kind of connection between four people only comes once in a generation, and if McCartney’s onstage performances of ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ with footage of Lennon or ‘Now and Then’ has taught us anything, it’s that they have always worked better together than apart.
