Last night I took my Wife and Son to see Oasis at the Echo Arena. My son had asked me if we could go as he likes their music. I'm not a huge fan, but I did like the first few albums so thought why not.
I was a little apprehensive going back to the arena after the summer pops, but I'll come to that later.
The concert itself was superb. Liam's vocal style/approach has changed for the better. Musically & vocally, it was fantastic. A good mix of old and new, and it was a typical "New Album Tour" with 1/2 dozen songs off the new album, then a best of set, with songs mainly from the first two albums. Highlights for me were an acoustic version of Don't look back in anger, Morning Glory and Champagne Supernova. Ricky Hatton introduced the band and warned anyone against pushing Noel off stage as they'd have him to deal with. All in all a great night, good atmosphere and packed out. The usual floor seating was removed and the area was fully standing, and I couldn't see any spaces within the crowd.
Onto the arena.....on entering the arena last night, everbody was scanned with metal detectors and patted down. I was asked to empty my pockets when the detector went off, no biggie there. The "4 drinks per customer limit" was in force again, and every drink was poured into plastic glasses. When I asked if mine could be left in the plastic bottle (Pepsi max bottle that is) I was told because they could be used as missile, it was a new policy. As we went into the main arena, there was a heavier than usual security presence and quite a few police. It would seem they took a zero tolerance approach and I watched a few people getting thrown out for persistant smoking. After the warm up act a few plastic glasses started getting thrown about which were about 1/4 full of "liquid". After a few minuted, they began raining down, as suddenly, hundreds of glasses were thrown from all directions of the arena. Luckily, we were in the upper tier, so there was very little chance of anything hitting us. Security evicted anyone caught throwing, but as there were so many people doing it, it was impossible to catch everyone. This pretty much continued for the rest of the night. When I told the guy next to me I was glad I wasn't on the floor, he told me that he was from Birmingham and travelled over the UK & Europe to watch them, and this was a common thing. Oh, he also said the glasses were probably filled with piss, not beer.
Not sure if I'd go and see Oasis again, but I will be going the arena again as it seems they have taken notice of the many complaints. The new approach from security was a great improvement but there's still room for improvement.
