The band Jack Black thought was disappointing live: “That bugs me”
Any rock and roll fan always comes back to the live show as the best medium to watch their favourite acts. While seeing the music videos is certainly good and hearing them on record is even better, getting the chance to watch the best musicians in the world up close and personal is nothing short of a euphoric experience for anyone who has ever attended a badass rock concert. While Jack Black catered to every single stripe of rock fan, he admitted that seeing Oasis left him slightly disappointed when seeing them live for the first time.
But if it falls under the rock category, it doesn’t really take that much of a leap to assume that Black will go for it. After all, this guy mapped out the basic evolution of every badass band in the genre in School of Rock, and given that he’s in the single greatest group that ever lived in Tenacious D, he is more than worthy of passing judgment.
While Black might mean all of his claims of being in the all-time greatest band in jest, the Gallagher brothers never minced any of their words. It was clear that they meant every single word that they said, and no matter how many times they came off as a little bit pretentious, no one could argue with the results when albums like What’s The Story Morning Glory arrived in the mid-1990s.
For many, this was the second coming of The Beatles they had always wanted, and when looking at Liam swaggering up onstage, they had their composite version of John Lydon in front of them. And even if Be Here Now left a lot to be desired in the long run, it wasn’t like people still bought it in droves, with tracks like ‘All Around the World’ and ‘Stand By Me’ getting in the charts despite their massive run times.
Even if someone’s up at the top for that long, there comes a moment when things start getting a bit tiresome. As much as people loved hearing songs like ‘Wonderwall’, the Gallagher brothers would have a strained relationship with the pop song that made them stars, which got a rise out of Black when he saw them live in the early 2000s.
Despite loving everything they had done, Black was disappointed seeing them refuse to play the acoustic-rock staple live, saying, “We love them and saw them in Las Vegas, except they didn’t play ‘Wonderwall’, and that bugs me when the band doesn’t play the hit. When they say, ‘no, that’s what they want us to play, we’re going to do this other thing, to show them we’re not…’ You know, just play what we came to hear you play.”
Then again, that might be because the song’s track record is more of a joke nowadays than it is a proper song. For all of the genuine love it has garnered over the years, the ironic twist that comes with most people flipping it into a joke has made it a meme in some circles and an absolute dud if you want to be taken seriously at open mic nights.
Still, it’s easy to see both sides of the story here. As much as Black was bummed not to hear them playing their signature hit live, it’s possible that Noel and Liam had tried to wash their hands of the tune the same way that Kurt Cobain tried to scrub himself clean from the stench of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.
