Noel Gallagher recently spoke on That Pedal Show about obtaining Pete Townshend’s amp settings in stealth while the Who guitarist’s own technician was not present. While discussing guitars, amps, and pedals, the former Oasis singer recalled a day when he went after his guitar hero: “I did something recently at the Royal Festival Hall for Peter Blake’s 90th birthday.” A couple of nights before that, a Mesa/Boogie amp arrived from Gibson [Noel motions to the California Tweed combo in the studio]. ‘There’s only two in the UK- one is for you,’ stated the man.
And then I get to the festival hall, and there’s one of these amps. Pete Townshend has the other. So I told [my tech] to go collect his settings. He had to wait till his tech wasn’t looking to write them down.” Townshend, however, was not the only musician with whom Gallagher experimented with his instruments. In the same interview, Noel mentioned that he once had the opportunity to study Neil Young’s guitars and amps: “There’s nothing you can say about him [Neil Young] that expresses what a punk rocker he is, and Oasis were opening for him.” After his soundcheck, Gem [Archer, guitarist] and I just went, ‘Can we get onstage to look at his guitars?’ They were literally all lying near his amps.
His guitar team was wonderful and simply answered, ‘Oh sure, just look at the pedalboard.’ It was like a trash shop.” In other news, the rocker’s fourth album, ‘Council Skies,’ was published on June 2 through High Flying Birds. Apart from the covers by Bob Dylan and John Lennon, Noel Gallagher penned all of the songs himself. The song is competing with Foo Fighters’ ‘But Here We Are’ for the number one spot in the UK. You can hear the album below.