Noel Gallagher makes emotional and thrilling homecoming in Manchester

Noel Gallagher has delivered a superb career-spanning set at an emotionally charged homecoming show in Manchester.

His gig at Wythenshawe Park on Saturday, a relative stone's throw from his childhood home, was always going to be an big moment for the city.

Mixing Oasis and High Flying Birds' finery, it was the set that proved just how powerful a songwriter he is.

It also showed why, despite what a baying crowd would wish, he has no need to consider a reunion with his brother.

More than 25,000 gathered in the park, which was hosting a huge gig for the first time, and many had memories of Knebworth, of Barrowlands, of those two legendary nights at Maine Road in mind, which meant that as fiery and ferocious as the delivery of his post-Oasis songs were, it was those from the 90s that really got the crowd going.

How much pleasure such moments gave Gallagher was debatable. Long before he rolled out a superb Half A World Away, its appearance was requested by a voice down at the front.

"I need a different guitar, but I'll play it later," he said, adding with an expletive-laden summary of how he believed the song was, shall we say, rubbish.

A wry point, perhaps, but one that revealed Gallagher's love/hate relationship with his previous life, because while the crowd wanted his Oasis output, he was most fired up delivering the songs he has written since parting ways with Liam.

Pretty Boy, In The Heat Of The Moment, If I Had A Gun... and Council Skies all hit home in shuddering, intoxicating fashion, while AKA... What A Life!, delivered "to all the Man City supporters" and an on-stage cardboard cut out of Pep Guardiola, proved just how strong his work has been in the last decade.

But even he understood that the majority were here as much for the love of what he was as what he has become and the second half was something of an Oasis fan's dream.

The Importance of Being Idle came like a punch to the guts, the aforementioned Half A World Away felt evergreen in its beauty, Going Nowhere found an unexpectedly glorious moment in the dying summer light and a thrilling rendition of The Masterplan, dedicated to Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, hit the absolute centre of the proverbial bullseye.

A storming Little By Little closed proceedings before Gallagher returned for a three-song encore.

"Do we have any Bob Dylan fans in?" he smiled, before launching into a cover of Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn), which barrelled into a stripped back and shimmering Live Forever.

Set complete, he stepped up to the mic for a final time.

"If I've got to join in, I want my money back," he said and the band launched into Don't Look Back In Anger.

There would be no such refund as the only voice not singing every word was Gallagher's, despite many of the 25,000 holding their arms and their phones aloft not being, as he had earlier observed, born when the song was first released.

It was one of those moments music fans dream of.

A life-affirming, communal singalong moment that showed just why so many people fell for his songwriting in the first place.

And it underlined a perhaps thorny truth, that if that much longed-for reunion never comes to pass, there might just be enough brilliance in Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds to make up for it.

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds at Wythenshawe Park - setlist

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