Noel's Glasto verdict

Oasis guitarist offers a less scathing view of 2009's festival headliners

11 June 2009 - After his controversial comments about Jay-Z at Glastonbury last year Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher has put forward his opinion on this year's line-up.

In 2008 he said it was "wrong" to have a hip-hop headliner and said that was why the festival struggled to sell out.

Jay-Z hit back by opening his set with a cover of the Oasis hit, Wonderwall. But this year, Noel has held back on the headliners and their old Brit-pop rivals: "If you were a Blur fan it will be extremely exciting for you."

The Oasis mastermind admitted, when asked what his thoughts were on the line-up, that is was a "loaded question" before casting his eye over the bill.

"I like Bruce. I don't know, do I like Bruce?" he mused. "I don't own any of his records. I like Crosby, Stills and Nash. I love Neil Young, he's playing isn't he somewhere and I love The Specials - I've just been to see The Specials."

'Quite exciting'

Over the years, no secret has been made of the antipathy between the Gallagher brothers and Blur, who were also a prominent force in the music industry in the '90s.

But Noel was restrained when discussing Blur, who announced their summer comeback last December and are set to headline the final evening in Somerset on Sunday 28 June.

"Blur are playing. That will be exciting for Blur fans," he said. "Particularly if you're a Blur fan that's come along since the how ever many years it is they've not been doing nothin', and you've almost waited a lifetime to see them - it will be quite exciting I would have thought."

He claimed Blur never really split up, but just went on hiatus.

"If I'd have had anything to do with that bill Franz Ferdinand wouldn't have been on it."
Noel Gallagher

"People in other bands can turn their hands to different types of music," said Noel of Blur's time apart, which saw frontman Damon Albarn dream up the virtual band Gorillaz and put on the theatre production, Monkey Journey To The West.

"We never went to college or university; what you see me doing on stage, I'm operating at the absolute limit of my musical ability. I can't do anything else," he continued. "I can't play jazz, I can't work out Chinese operas, I don't know about reggae.

"All I know is how to play the songs that I play, so we've never really been able to do anything else and never really had the inclination to.

"If you're in Oasis there's no need to do anything else. It's why people have never left U2. " 

Franz response

Emily Eavis has denied this year's headliners of Bruce Springsteen, Blur and Neil Young was a reaction to the contentious billing of Jay-Z, at the festival which has traditionally seen guitar-based rock acts fill the top, Pyramid Stage slots. (Read more)

And Noel also dismissed he had anything to do with the organisers' choice to book the titans of rock: "It goes in cycles though.

Everybody can't all play at the same time. "If I'd have had anything to do with that bill Franz Ferdinand wouldn't have been on it. The Script are playing though. They're brilliant, and The Wombats."

Noel Gallagher was speaking to Sharuna Sagar for BBC 6 Music.

Georgie Rogers