Liam Gallagher & John Squire – Collaboration Album

By Arley Armfield

Liam Gallagher – live at Lucca Summer Festival 2022. Credit: Alamy

This month two masterful Madchester-era heavyweights resurfaced: Liam Gallagher, the powerful voice of Oasis, and Liam’s hero, John Squire of The Stone Roses.

This unlikely duo formed after Squire’s search for a singer in the summer of 2023 ended up when Squire supported Gallagher at the sold-out Knebworth gigs, playing a mesmerising lead guitar on Champagne Supernova.

This new collaboration has been highly anticipated by fans of psychedelic, blues and hard rock. It will certainly not disappoint fans of the Beatles.

Not surprisingly, given Oasis’ obsession with the Fab Four, there are clear Beatles influences. Mars To Liverpool, the album’s second single has a bluesy riff that could remind almost anyone of the great Ticket To Ride. Gallagher’s voice still has the drive, power and rasp of his Oasis days, but seems to have pushed him to adapt, with being perhaps a lot more controlled and rhythmic.

Mother Nature’s Song, with its obvious echo of the Beatle’s Mother Nature’s Son, shows the duo expressing their spiritual, natural side. Gallagher says of the song, it’s “one to make you cry, man”.
Gallagher and Squire kicked off their tour to support the album at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom. In typical rock’n’roll fashion, they opened with an energetic cover of the Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash, although, judging from the footage, Liam wasn’t as energetically spontaneous as a 78-year-old Jagger. But he was certainly just as cool.

Some early criticisms of the tour so far have been the short-set time, with the show only lasting 50 minutes, for a costly price. Additionally, the album has drawn criticism for not being as rock-oriented as the glory days of the Oasis brothers. However, it must be said it executes a modern take on old-school psychedelic blues of the ’60s blended with some elements of rock’n’roll, and any musician knows the level of John Squire as a lead guitar player.

The winner of the Godlike Genius award, the modest Mr Gallagher assured fans on Facebook that this “feels like the start” which is fantastic news, as Gallagher was planning a year away from music in 2024, after reaching number one with his previous three solo albums. Squire had been away from a group since his reunion with The Stone Roses was finished in 2016.

Overall, many of the fans proclaimed by Liam as the “Parka-monkeys” have a lot to look forward to in the bright future.