British rocker Noel Gallagher has developed a reputation in recent years for delivering biting, hilarious one-liners, both in interviews and at concerts. In front of the crowd as the Saturday night headliner for Tokyo's leg of Summer Sonic, however, the former Oasis brain trust was mostly quiet.
Over the course of 90 minutes, he and his High Flying Birds hunkered down on recent solo material with a few Oasis hits mixed in ("Wonderwall," "Don't Look Back In Anger"). "Thanks so much," he said late in the show, "maybe we'll come back next summer." He ended with The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" while the audience trickled toward the exits.
The scene reflected Summer Sonic 2018 as a whole, held concurrently in Tokyo (well, Chiba) and Osaka on Aug. 18 and 19. The festival opted for fairly reliable crowd-pleasers at the top of the bill in the form of Gallagher and American alt-rocker Beck, acts long popular in Japan and both of whom saw recent success headlining Fuji Rock in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The rest of the lineup managed a balancing act, avoiding a push to one single genre as had happened in recent years.