Song of the Day 8/27: Oasis, “Half the World Away”

There’s no pleasing some people. Hardcore Oasis fans, for example.

Noel and Liam Gallagher finally agreed to work together again, reforming Oasis after 15 years of sniping at each other, but though their sold-out worldwide reunion tour has gotten positive reviews, their stans have a complaint: They’ve played the same 23-song setlist at every show.

Americans probably don’t appreciate what a big deal an Oasis reunion is in the rest of the world, especially Great Britain, where 14 million applied for the 1.4 million tickets to their 17 shows in the UK and Ireland. The unchanging setlist didn’t draw much attention until the band played three basically identical shows in Edinburgh during the annual Fringe Festival earlier this month. Some people who went to more than one concert were less than gruntled.

Concertgoers want to hear the hits, of course, but they also like being surprised by unexpected covers and deep cuts. Oasis is sticking almost entirely to well-known material from their mid-’90s glory years. Hopes that they’d change the mix for the North American leg of the tour, which stops at the Meadowlands Sunday and Monday, were dashed when they played the same set in Toronto.

A few songs might be less familiar with to overseas audiences because they were available only as B-sides to UK singles until they were gathered for the 1998 LP “The Masterplan,” retrospectively praised as among Oasis’ best albums. Noel Gallagher later said he probably should have saved many of the tunes for LPs, but many became concert staples back in the day anyway.

“Half the World Away” is well-known to Brits for a different reason – it was the theme song to a popular sitcom set in Manchester, “The Royle Family.” Noel recorded it alone after dismissing the rest of the band, including the drummer. He released it in 1994 as a B-side to “Whatever,” a non-album single that reached No. 3 in the Britain.

If the tune sounds a bit familiar, it’s because Gallagher admitted he nicked it from Burt Bacharach’s “This Guy’s in Love With You.” In 1996 Bacharach was in London on a concert tour when Gallagher joined him to sing the song Bacharach wrote for Herb Alpert.