Liam Gallagher: As It Was review – rock’n’roll rebel grows up
The charismatic swagger remains, but this disarming portrait of the former Oasis singer reveals a newfound humility
Bros raised the candid rockumentary bar, and it falls to Liam Gallagher to respond: strange days indeed. This disarming portrait of pop’s pre-eminent monobrow picks up where Supersonic (2016) left off, with the sundering of the brothers Gallagher amid Oasis’s toxic 2009 tour. As It Was follows Liam through a challenging transition period.
Their familiar braggadocio is still on display – within five minutes, the film’s subject can be heard declaring “I know how great I am” – but the opening half-hour describes the failures of multiple projects close to the singer’s heart: rebound band Beady Eye, fashion line Pretty Green, the dissolution of his marriage to Nicole Appleton. A man installed as a rock god in his 20s is suddenly confronted by a question familiar to mere mortals of a certain age: what next?