“You wouldn’t fucking be here without Manchester,” Noel Gallagher told the crowd of 90,000 at Wembley at the weekend. I don’t know whether this was a reference to the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. Or to the development of the modern computer. Or even to the splitting of the atom, all of which were burnished in the history of Gallagher’s home city.
The senior partner in Oasis was responding to some booing from the crowd when he dedicated his song “Half The World Away” (whose lyrics are about escaping the torpor of a humdrum city) to “all Mancunians everywhere”. Gallagher faced down the crowd: “You dress like us, you talk like us. You wanna fucking be us,” he said. “So what you fucking booing for?”
So while it’s safe to say that he wasn’t specifically referring to Manchester’s role in the industrial, scientific and technological development of the world, his point was well made.
Like Gallagher, I was born in the same city and, like him, I have lived in London for decades. We may have become naturalised Southerners – Gallagher even referred to his “Maida Vale Mandem” during the show – but that doesn’t make our attachment to the city of our birth any less powerful, or indeed legitimate. Maybe even more so, fuelled by the zeal of the expatriate.
It is interesting to note, however, that the comments section of the Manchester Evening News report about Gallagher’s remarks is populated by respondents saying things like, “He couldn’t wait to go to London”; and “Got the money and got out”; and “He loves Manchester so much he lives half the world away”. Yes, Mancunians can be petty and small-minded, too.
But does the fact that Gallagher lives in one of London’s most exclusive postcodes, or that I now live in the Cotswolds, render loyalties to our home city inadmissible? Of course not, and it’s a story as old as time that someone leaves their home town in search of fame and fortune. What’s more, you can argue that, in a globalised world where identity is suffused and the cult of the individual holds sway, identification with a bigger entity, whose values you espouse and in whose history you feel pride, is to be encouraged. We all need something to believe in, beyond our own Instagram feed.
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And when it comes to the spirit of Manchester, the Gallagher brothers are as significant an embodiment of civic identity as the Duke of Bridgewater or Emmeline Pankhurst or Alan Turing. In their presence both on and off stage, they personify the city’s underdog character and uncompromising approach to the world.
Liam Gallagher hardly moves for Oasis’s coruscating two-hour performance, his face barely visible under the bucket hat, his entire persona speaking of provocation, non-conformism and audacity. Using the lingua franca of the band, it’s what you might call a fuck-off attitude.
The show itself is an assault on the senses, and while its reach is that of a full-scale cultural phenomenon, it still manages to retain a degree of intimacy, and something of the flavour of the gigs the band did at Manchester’s Boardwalk Club 35 years ago. The Gallaghers have not forgotten their roots, which makes their conviction all the more authentic, powerful and, for me at least, moving. I found myself dabbing a few tears away during Noel’s magnificent, melancholic rendition of “Half The World Away”. It made me think fondly of the place that, long ago, was my home too.
On many occasions, my affiliation to Manchester, and my identity as a Mancunian first and a Briton second, has been challenged by Londoners. “If you like Manchester so much, what are you doing down here?” they would say. My answer has always been the same: “Missionary work.”
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