Artist: Alan McGee

Interviewer: Gavin Puszczalowskyi

Venue: The Constitutional, Farsley

Date: 13.9.19

An Evening with Alan McGee kicks-off with a fairly staged but enlightening interview. Gavin Puszczalowskyi’s questions are well planned and unintrusive, so Alan McGee knows what to expect and responds well. There are interesting insights into the musicians he knew in his youth, many of who became a part of the Creation Records stable.

McGee underplays his heavy influence on the indie music scene and what would eventually become the Britpop behemoth – which inevitably brings us to Oasis (far from the best band he ever signed). However, many of the audience would rather hear tales of the Gallaghers rather than Gillespie, and so the evening predictably ends up going down that path.

Then comes the audience Q&A session. The ‘Liam-a-likes’ and ‘Boneheads’ offer a barrage of babbling questions, jeering over each other’s input and getting far too giddy about the presence of a famous face in Farsley. A group of lads (with a demo tape) think that being boisterous at the bar will get them noticed – it does, but for all the wrong reasons. A girl in a short skirt asks McGee if she can sit on his knee to ask a question; he awkwardly obliges whilst she shoots feminism in the foot.

I ask McGee (in a Desert Island Discs scenario) if he could save only one of his Creation releases which would he choose and why? His simple and decisive answer: Higher Than the Sun by Primal Scream – because he loves that record. Respect.

The evening ends with an auction, where pissed-up punters pay way over the odds for framed versions of Oasis albums and memorabilia. At this point I sneak away to savor Screamadelica on my drive home.