Oasis: DO Go Away

For the record, before I rant about them, I used to love Oasis.

Great ‘90s band, I thought. “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” was a fabulous album. Still gets regular play on the treasured iPod.

Some of their later albums, well, they were good. Each seemed to have one or two good songs - "Live Forever" and "Stand by Me" among them - but nothing on the scale of the start-to-finish greatness of Morning Glory.

Like most bands I like, I held out absolute judgment on them until I saw them live. My two favorite bands are U2 and Springsteen and the E Street Band so I value live music more than most and, because they set it, the bar is pretty darn high for putting on a good show.

I finally got around to seeing Oasis at the Orpheum in 2000 and, while they played a ton of good music, the show pretty much sucked. Liam and Noel just sort of stood there shouting out the music, didn’t offer any real energy and enthusiasm and crapped on the crowd whenever they could.

Like most Oasis fans, I always sort of discounted what they said because, well, clearly they were idiots who just made good music.

But making fun of U2 for talking about AIDS, famine and stupid poverty in Africa ? Now that’s just over the line, you dumb Brit. Check it out here in today's London Telegraph, Noel's interview with Neil McCormick, a good friend of U2, by the way.

Say what you say about Radiohead and compare yourself to The Beatles but, for God’s sake you yellow-toothed bastards, U2 doesn’t push its causes down anyone’s throat. I think there’s maybe one mention in each show these days, about a five-minute intro to “One” (which, by the way, is a song you no-doubt wish you wrote, Mr. ‘F-ing in the Bushes.’).

Let’s face it, Noel, you guys were about two good songs away from being the 90s version of Talk Talk. You are a three-hit wonder still living off your first good album and your 15 minutes ended at about minute number two.

Shut up, sit down or go wash your hair. But don’t knock U2 for trying to make the world a better place while also making good music – fans actually like that.

Yeesh, I feel better ...