Noel and Liam Gallagher to headline (separate) Biggest Weekend shows

Nine years after Oasis split, Noel and Liam Gallagher will headline Radio 2's stages at the BBC's Biggest Weekend Festival in May.

But, perhaps wisely, organisers have booked the brothers to play on different days... at different ends of the UK.

Noel will play the Scottish leg of the festival in Perth on Saturday 26 May.

A day later, Liam will appear at Coventry's War Memorial Park alongside Paloma Faith, UB40 and Billy Ocean.

Speaking to Chris Evans' Radio 2 Breakfast Show, Liam acknowledged the oddity of them headlining the same event.

Chris Evans: So have you ever played a gig in one place, whilst your brother is playing for the same cause on a stage in the nation next door?

Liam Gallagher: No, no, no, but we're getting closer and closer to each other, aren't we?

Chris Evans: This is what's so intriguing about this, you see. You're like two sperm whales eyeing each other up from miles apart.

Liam Gallagher: Yeah that is it, mate. We're getting closer and closer, we're gonna collide, mate, one day and who knows what will happen?

The gigs are part of the Biggest Weekend - the largest music event ever attempted by the BBC.

The venues in Scotland and England will feature music from Radios 2 and 3, while Radio 1 will take over Swansea's Singleton Park with a bill including Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Craig David and Wolf Alice.

And BBC 6 Music will head to the Titanic Quarter in Belfast with artists like Beck, Manic Street Preachers, Courtney Barnett and Breeders.

The Radio 1 stages are sold out, but tickets for the other events are still available.

The Gallagher brothers' headline slots come after almost nine years of acrimony. Oasis broke up at a gig in Paris in 2009 after an altercation that began with Liam throwing a plum at his older brother's head.

They've barely spoken since but have engaged in a long war of words in the press, on stage and social media.

Liam repeatedly called Noel a "massive potato" on Twitter and, more seriously, accused him of deliberately avoiding last year's One Love concert in Manchester.

Noel responded by saying Liam was a "village idiot" who "needs to see a psychiatrist".

Liam performed at the One Love event, which was held two weeks after the Manchester Arena terror attack in May, while Noel headlined the venue's reopening concert in September.

By Christmas, the brothers seemed to have buried the hatchet. Liam tweeted that Noel had "reached out" and that they were "all good again".

They're clearly not at the point where they could appear together on stage yet... but the Biggest Weekend gig would appear to be the first time both brothers have shared such a billing at a festival.

As for an Oasis reunion? Even if Liam is keen, don't hold your breath.

"I've been very consistent about it," Noel told Q Magazine in 2017. "I don't need the money, I don't need the glory, I don't need to relive the memories.

"If I was to get Oasis back together tomorrow and then do a tour, I'd have $100m in the bank but I'd have learnt [expletive] all."

"It would be the death of me as a person."

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