Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds Put Their Spin on Two Oasis Rarities at Abbey Road

Noel Gallagher and his High Flying Birds set-up shop at Abbey Road to re-record a pair of Oasis songs, “The Masterplan” and “Going Nowhere.”

Both songs originally appeared on Oasis’ 1998 B-sides collection, The Masterplan, which just got the 25th anniversary reissue treatment earlier this year. They’re also both staples of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds live set, so the Abbey Road Sessions offered the band a chance to lay down their versions for posterity.

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Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have had a very busy year after releasing their fourth album, Council Skies, in June. The band spent much of 2023 on tour in support of the record, trekking through North America earlier this year, and they’re set to launch a run of arena shows in the U.K. on Dec. 14.

Back in June, Gallagher sat down for an extensive interview with the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, where he discussed co-writing three songs with the Black Keys for their next album (“We did a week in the studio in London… And I’ve gotta tell you, they’re fucking amazing.”) and the plethora of music he wrote for himself during the pandemic.

“There is an acoustic album as well, which is very, very stripped back, and which I started recording recently,” he said. “And then there’s a very heavily guitar-based, stadium-rock album.”

And, as always, Gallagher addressed the always possible, but still very unlikely, Oasis reunion. Gallagher put the onus on his brother Liam, saying: “I’ve put it out there that if Liam really wants to do it, he should fucking call me, and he hasn’t called me, so I’m just assuming that he doesn’t want it either. Well, I know for a fact he doesn’t want it either, but he likes to paint this picture of, you know, this little fucking guy who’s sitting with his suitcase packed by the door, you know, like the little fucking cat from fucking Shrek, you know, the little fucking Spanish cat with these big fucking teary eyes. ‘I’m [gonna] go and do it now for you fans. I love you.’ It’s like, well, fucking call me then. And he hasn’t called me. And until he does, it’s fucking going nowhere.”

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