It was a pleasure to interview Noel Gallagher at the iconic venue of Salford Lads Club – which is run by volunteers – with all profits from the evening going to support the youth club and the building itself. Tickets sold out in just one minute.
Former Manchester City player Paul Lake introduced the event.
During his career Noel has mixed with musical legends, one such icon being David Bowie. “He’s one of the all-time greats,” he said. “One of my biggest regrets is that I met him once and I was a bit too stupid to appreciate him. Someone came up to me and said “David would like to see you and I was like, ‘Of course he would!” I wish I had the opportunity to meet him now again.”
As a someone who wrote lasting hits such as Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back in Anger and Live Forever (the latter being voted as the Best British Song Ever in a poll by Radio X last year), you’d wonder what was left to achieve for the 52-year-old musician.
“I’m still trying to write the greatest song of all time,” said Noel. “I know that sounds a little pretentious but that’s what keeps me going. I’m not driven by anything other than music. I just want to keep doing it with enthusiasm and I’m still trying to write the greatest song.”
The event was a great success with £8,500 raised for Salford Lad’s Club.
Kirsty Fairclough is Reader in Screen Studies at the School of Digital Arts, Manchester Metropolitan University and Chair of Manchester Jazz Festival.
She has published widely on popular culture and am the co-editor of The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop (Routledge), The Arena Concert: Music, Media and Mass Entertainment (Bloomsbury) and Music/Video: Forms, Aesthetics, Media. New York, (Bloomsbury) and author of the forthcoming Beyoncé: Celebrity Feminism and Popular Culture (I.B Tauris) and co-author of American Cinema: A Contemporary Introduction (Palgrave).
Her work has been published in Senses of Cinema, Feminist Media Studies, SERIES and Celebrity Studies journals and she has made several television and radio appearances.
Kirsty has lectured internationally on popular culture, feminism and representations of women most notably at The Royal College of Music, Stockholm, The University of Copenhagen, Second City, Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, Middle Tennessee State University, Unisinos Brazil and Bucknell University, Pennsylvania.
She has significant experience in international partnership development, particularly in North America and developed the Salford Popular Culture Conference series with international partner universities, including I’ll See You Again in 25 Years, Twin Peaks and Generations of Cult Television: A Two Day International Conference (University of Salford, May 2015) and Mad Men: The Conference (Middle Tennessee State University, May 2016) and Purple Reign: An interdisciplinary conference on the life and legacy of Prince, a three day international academic conference hosted by the School of Arts and Media, University of Salford, UK and the Department of Recording Industry, Middle Tennessee State University, USA.
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