Beady Eye, Southampton Guildhall (From Daily Echo)

Beady Eye, Southampton Guildhall

9:53am Wednesday 27th April 2011 in Music Reviews By Lorelei Reddin, Entertainments Editor

IT’S not Oasis. But for fans of the seminal and now defunct rock and roll stars, it’s the next best thing.

OK, they’re missing the song-writing genius of Noel Gallagher and the anthems which filled Knebworth and Wembley Stadium in the band’s heyday, but Liam certainly knows how to excite a crowd.

You would think the generation who grew up on Wonderwall, She'sElectric and Don’t Look Back in Anger would have grown up and mellowed by now.

But there’s still the traditional Oasis welcome of hurled beer and possibly other liquids as Beady Eye (read Oasis minus one) take to the stage.

But then they do take their lead from a 38-year-old who walks with a youthful swagger and exudes menace from every pore.

Liam – pictured above – is certainly a formidable frontman but as he launches into opener Four Letter Word, there’s less than usual of his own spilling from his lips. He is uncharacteristically quiet between songs, but this is the kind of raucous atmosphere only a Liam band could produce.

Highlights are the novel Bring The Light and particularly The Roller, which is the closest they have yet come to achieving an Oasis-style anthem.

Psychedelic tune The Morning Son has all the ingredients which could yet make Liam a songwriter on the scale of his big brother. The lyrics “he’s in my soul, he’s even in my rock ’n’ roll”

could be written for no other I suspect.

It’s not Champagne Supernova, but it is certainly rock ’n roll.