LIAM GALLAGHER & THE 1975 AT POHODA FESTIVAL 2019

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Pohoda 2019 will feature one of the most famous voices in history – Liam Gallager is coming to Trenčín. Thousands of readers of Q magazine and listeners of Radio X called him the biggest frontman of all times. After a several years long break, the founder and singer of the legendary Oasis and Beady Eye came back with a fantastic solo album As You Were last year. It immediately became the number one of the British chart, selling more copies in the first week than all the other albums in the TOP twenty of the aforementioned chart altogether. Shortly after his comeback, Liam received Best Live Act and Icon Award at Q Awards, Godlike Genius for his music industry services at NME Awards, and nominations for the Brit Awards and NME Awards for the Best Singer and Live Artist. As the headliner of the TRNSMT, Benicassim and Isle of Wight festival last summer, he swept the attenders up with his mixture of new and old hits, and we are very pleased that he will fantastically end Pohoda 2019 this summer.

Liam Gallagher is the youngest of the three sons of Irish immigrants from a Manchester suburb, but unlike older Noel, he wasn’t very interested in music in his childhood. Everything apparently changed after he received a blow to the head from a classmate. He was obsessed with becoming a member of a band ever since. Inspired by The Beatles (especially by Lennon), The Who, The Kinks, The Jam, or Madonna, he founded his first band, The Rain, with his classmate. After Noel joined them, they were renamed to Oasis. Together, they released eight n°1 albums, the most successful being the first three ones – Definitely Maybe, What’s the Story Morning Glory? (the best album of the last 30 years, according to BBC listeners) or Be Here Now. They defined the second half of the nineties, with Oasis becoming the leading band of the then dominant Britpop. Their success was compared to that of The Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones. They won seventeen NME Awards, nine Q Awards, six Brit Awards, and four MTV Europe Music Awards. They have also a few entries in the Guinness Book of Wolrd Records: for example, 22 continuous weeks in the TOP 10 of the UK chart, or the fact that their albums and songs lasted 765 weeks at the top of the UK chart. Despite the extraordinary success, the band did not withstand disputes between the brothers, which led to Noel’s departure at the end of August 2009. Liam and the other Oasis members continued their band under a new name, Beady Eye, and Noel eventually founded his own band, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

Liam’s Beady Eye, however, broke up after two albums Different Gear, Still Speeding and BE. Subsequently, Liam had a several years long break, which was interrupted by new musical ideas and a desire to do what he does best – to stand before the microphone and entrance thousands of people in front of the stage. He got signed by Warner Bros, who suggested that he tries to make a few songs with the producer Greg Kurstin (Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters, Adele, Beck, The Shins, Sia). The result was his first solo album, As You Were, which immediately became British number one and the fastest selling album in the last 20 years, regarding one week’s LP sales. In addition to Kurst, Andrew Wyatt (Lorde, Bruno Mars, Lyyke Li, Florence + The Machine, Miike Snow) and Dan Grech-Marguerat (Keane, Hurts, Lana Del Rey, Moby) also took part in the album making. According to magazine Q, As You Were stands as the proof that the rock’s most charismatic general is back on active service, and AllMusic adds that it’s the best record that both Gallaghers released since Oasis’ breakup. As You Were was also one of the reasons why Greg Kurstin received Grammy as the producer of the year. In May 2018, Liam announced that him, Kurtin and Wyatt are already working on the second solo album.

Liam Gallagher has never claimed to be a natural songwriter. Even in Oasis, his older brother Noel was the author of most of the big hits. As Liam once wrote on his Twitter: „He wrote them, I turned them into hits.“ With this remark he alluded to his ability to sell everything on stage with his unmistakable voice and a charisma from the position of one of the greatest frontmen of all time. This is confirmed by The Guardian, which gave him five stars out of five in a review of the last year’s Leeds concert, calling him the last great rock’n’roll star *. Andreas Imrich, the head of the artist production, came with the same rating after Liam’s concert in Berlin last year. Liam Gallagher will personally come to confirm words of the last great rock’n’roll star to Trenčín in half a year.

The 1975, the winners of Brit Awards for the best British band and the NME Awards for the Best Live band will play at Pohoda 2019. They have never been short of fans, as evidenced by the fact that each of their albums reached the top of sales of the British charts. Initially, however, they struggled to find their way to music critics. Rolling Stone gave their first album two stars out of five, and NME awarded them a prize for the worst band. As for the second album, both of the aforementioned media ranked it first in their year-ending charts. NME even called their latest “A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships” OK Computer for the millennials and gave it a 10/10 review. It was also granted approval of The Daily Telegraph, The Times, Skinny, DIY and The Q, and it also got into the Best New Music category of the Pitchfork magazine. The 1975 will come to convince the Slovak fans of their qualities the first day of Pohoda.

The 1975 was founded in Manchester by four schoolmates – the guitarist Matthew „Matty“ Healy, guitarist Adam Hann, bass player Ross MacDonald, and drummer George Daniel in Manchester. It took them almost a decade to get from the first meeting to the first single, but then it was a rocket start from an unknown band to the British indie pop stars. Their first Eps – Facedown, Sex, Music for Cars, and IV, were put on the map by the BBC moderators Huw Stephens and Zane Lowe. According to AllMusic, they combine youthful topics of sex with dark flavour, love and fear with ethereal alt-rock music. The Guardian compares them to the 80s stars such as Duran Duran and INXS. Before releasing their debut album, they supported Muse, the Neighbourhood, or Rolling Stones. Still, it came across as a surprise when their eponymous debut The 1975 became the number one in the UK Albums Chart. It was produced by Mike Crossey, who collaborated with Arctic Monkeys and Foals. However, fans‘ excellent responses did not meet with similar recognition from among critics. NME even gave them an award for the worst band.

Their second album I Like It When You Sleep, You Are So Beautiful, Still Unaware of It also earned exceptional success. In addition to fans, it was also appreciated by the media and experts. The album became the number one in the UK and the USA and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. According to NME, it was even the best album of the year and the number one of its genre according Rolling Stone and The Meneater. Billboard, PopMatters, Drowned In Sound and Digital Spy also included it in their TOP3. It became the bestselling album in Britain and the USA. In 2016 they received the BBC Music Awards for the Live Lounge Performance of the Year and in 2017 they added the prestigious Brit Awards for the best British band to their collection, while competing against Radiohead, Biffy Clyro and Bastille who were also nominated. In the same year they became the most nominated band at the NME Awards and won the Best Live Band award leaving Bastille, Wolf Alice, Bring Me The Horizon and Slaves behind themselves.

Despite the success of the second album, the latest A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships is a career and artistic leap in their work. The release was preceded by long teasing called Music for Cars. Prior to the recording itself, the heroine-addicted frontman underwent a rehab in Barbados. The album about human and artistic growing up suddenly turned into a generational work, the title of which correlates with the content very well. The NME called it OK Computer for the millennials. According to Q magazine, it is not only fun and moving, but also extremely necessary. DIY adds that the band has rose its colours of the most fascinating musical voice we have, creating a bombastic, flawlessly made portrait of the modern life. The album continued in the traditional conquest of the UK charts while reaching the fourth place in the US. The album is exclusively produced by the singer Matty Heally and the drummer George Daniel. Tracks, however, sound as if they were produced by 15 different people – you’ll find dance-electro-indie-pop songs more typical for them, such as „Give Yourself a Try“ and „It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)„, then neo-jazz „Sincerity Is Scary“ or intimate songs „Be my mistake“ and „I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)„.

This work is perfectly summed up-emphasized in the conclusion of Dan Stubbs‘ interview with Matty Healy for NME: „The first three albums were to be the story of his teenage years: the debut is about him as a dreaming youngster in Manchester, the second is about experiencing success and in the newest one he is to be mature. But they’ve gone one bigger. They’ve put together an album that doesn’t just sum Matty up, it seems to sum up the human condition as such. Who’d have thought?” By the end of May 2019, they are releasing its sequel in the form of the fourth album called Notes on a Conditional Form. We are very pleased that The 1975 will present this important generation album and its follower at the Trenčín airport.