Lord Don't Slow Me Down

Last night there was a screening of what was introduced as the "definitive Oasis documentary", "lord don't slow me down." I was surprised that the theatre was only about a third full, but that was fine with me. I'm not really sure how it's "definitive" if it only covers their most recent world tour and maybe 5 minutes of past footage (if that), but I guess everything Oasis does has to be grandiose, overhyped, "the biggest", "the best ever", what have you.

Personally, I should explain that when Oasis broke, I did not like them at all. I never understood why the acclaim that came to them was so powerful when bands like the Charlatans and James and Blur were all around long before. By the time I was in college, I moved in with 4 Mexican soccer players who thought it was funny to torture me by playing Oasis CD's while they played SuperMarioCart all day and spit sunflower seeds on the living room floor. (Loved those guys, by the way) They played Oasis enough that it grew on me and I even became a fan, bought a couple CD's, and even saw them live on the last tour.

Watching the handheld, mostly black and white doc can get a bit dizzying. It runs about an hour and a half (about 20 minutes too long). It follows Oasis, mostly in 2006 from Europe to America to Asia then Australia. I wasn't impressed with the live footage because it sounds muffled and/or overdubbed. What was cool was the backstage stuff; seeing the interviews (including a segment featuring local boy Mike Halloran of 94/9 and a glimpse of Tim Pyles and Owen Salerno from the station), seeing the fanatical fans, and the downtime footage in random places. Except I've kinda seen that all in every other band documentary. So goes the genre, I guess.

All in all, I thought the doc was good, worth seeing but only worth buying if you're a SuperFan. I would also have to say, it's worth seeing if you're of the "I like the music but hate the band" persuasion. After countless bad interviews, being asked in every city and by everybody about the tension between the Gallagher brothers I would probably be a dick, too. There's a certain amount of ego required to achieve the status that Oasis have achieved so more power to them...and for any band for that matter...and when you are playing to 20,000+ screaming fans at show after show, you might get a little arrogant, too. Still, I would never forgive them if I met them and they turned down a photo or signature, and while I'm sure at times they do, in this documentary, not once is a fan rejected. That makes Oasis, and this documentary, just fine by me.