Liam Gallagher: A Free Concert for NHS Workers, review: when one rock star thanked 20,000 others

“Very sophisticated crowd we’ve got here tonight,” observed Liam Gallagher, surveying the O2 Arena on Tuesday night. “Doctors, nurses, drug dealers – my kind of people.” And there were, indeed, almost 20,000 members of those professions – yes, even the third, technically – there for the evening’s special, free show, just for NHS staff.

This thank you from the former Oasis frontman was a typical mix of swaggering humour and genuine, heartfelt gratitude. Originally scheduled for October last year (before the vaccine had even been announced, let alone distributed), the delay meant that, as jabs signal the proper return of gigs, the feeling was one of huge celebration, of finally heading toward the light at the end of a very dark tunnel, rather than snatching good times while we could before the next lockdown begins. And, acting as both a glorious return to the stage for Gallagher after 18 months without a proper audience, and a warm-up for his headline gigs at Reading and Leeds next week, it was a thrilling triumph.

Ahead of Gallagher’s arrival, Primal Scream threw an equally joyous, if more tripped-out and mellow party. Among the swirling psychedelia, though, singalongs like the enormous one that always erupts during Come Together proved the first of the evening’s jubilant moments. There were more cheers when frontman Bobby Gillespie – at 59, still effortlessly cooler than you could ever have hoped to be at 21 – took a moment to thank the NHS and “fight those who want to end it”, while Rocks remained a devilishly slinky and irresistible rock’n’roll banger.

For a man who doesn’t move much, doesn’t smile much, keeps his shades on indoors and speaks almost entirely in short, blunt quips (“It’s good to see your lovely faces, and hear your lovely voices, and smell your lovely breath”), it was still obvious how much Liam Gallagher was enjoying himself. Not only that, but he remains one of Britain’s best rock stars, absolutely magnetic.

He also knows how to make an entrance. Arriving against a backdrop of stylish, punky visuals of chaos and carry-on, he gave an opening rendition of Oasis’s Hello and Morning Glory that alone would be enough to chalk the evening up as a win. He doesn’t give too much away, but what he does overflows with attitude, energy and an unshakable, cocky confidence. And on Tuesday evening, he channelled it perfectly.

Where his brother Noel leans more toward being an artist, drawing setlists from his solo material and post-Oasis band High Flying Birds almost to a point of stubbornness, Liam is more an entertainer, playing to the crowd and giving them more of what they know, what they want. There was plenty of his own solo stuff – Shockwave, The River – but just over half of the 20-song set was Oasis.

In terms of his solo material, Why Me? Why Not was thunderous, while Greedy Soul’s heavy groove needed two drummers to get it deep enough. Inevitably, though, it was during the encore of back-to-back Oasis songs that the night truly soared. Cigarettes & Alcohol required two goes to get past the intro (“We should start that again,” smirked Gallagher as the song fell apart), but when it kicked in, the singalong was deafening, as it was for Supersonic and Roll With It.

“I wanna thank you for what you do,” Gallagher declared to this most special of audiences, before an enormous Live Forever. “Thank you for being f---ing rock stars.”

It takes one to know one, and on the night the sentiment flowed in both directions across the stage.