Manchester music heavyweights Noel Gallagher and Blossoms have been confirmed to play this year’s Teenage Cancer Trust gig series at the historic Royal Albert Hall.
Britpop and global rock and roll icon Noel Gallagher will be bringing his High Flying Birds and the local lads from Stockport along to the legendary London venue as two of the very first names to be confirmed for the annual fundraising concert series.
Scheduled as the third date in the upcoming run of gigs, the former Oasis frontman will be pleased to have his fellow Manchester City fans joining him as special guests this March.
Other names already confirmed for Teenage Cancer Trust at Royal Albert Hall 2024 include adopted Manc electronic group, The Chemical Brothers; The Who, Squeeze, Young Fathers and many more.
Noel and Blossoms follow veterans The Who and Squeeze as the first musical acts on the 2024 lineup.
The Teenage Cancer Trust’s long-running partnership with the Royal Albert Hall has entered a momentous year which will see fellow rock legend and The Who frontman Roger Daltrey, who created and founded the series back in 2000, bow out as the driving force of these very special concerts.
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Stepping down as the official curator after 22 years, this year’s series will celebrate his work as he looks to continue as a Teenage Cancer Trust Honorary Patron but step back from his tireless role and allow for the next generation to take over fundraising and advocating for the charity.
For over two decades, Roger has persuaded some of the world’s greatest artists on the planet to perform unique, one-night-only gigs to raise money for the cause, generating over £32 million in vital funds through ticket sales alone and spreading the word of the charity’s extraordinary work.
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Enough to pay for over a million hours of specialist care from Teenage Cancer Trust nurses, or 13 whole TCT hospital units — having been staffed by just five units with just a fraction of those nurses and youth support workers back when it started — the gig series has proved to be life-changing for so many.
Speaking on the significant anniversary, Daltreysaid, “The £32 million raised from these concerts has been the foundation for the 28 specialised units within the NHS, as well as specialist nurses and youth workers to be there for a young person when cancer has turned their world upside down.”
As for Noel, he said: “The Teenage Cancer Trust continue to make a real difference to teenagers in what undoubtedly must be the most challenging years of their lives. Having performed at the very first event back in 2000 it is a charity very close to my heart. 24 years and counting is a triumph in itself. NGHFB will be there en masse. Together we will make the night unique. I’d buy a ticket if I were you.”
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Following what was a massive year for the Blossoms, they’ll no doubt be buzzing to kick off 2024 with such a special performance.
You can see the lineup for Teenage Cancer Trust at Royal Albert Hall so far in full down below.
Set to play on Thursday, 21 March, 2024, tickets for the concertgo on sale at 9am on Friday, 12 January, with proceeds going straight to the Teenage Cancer Trust.
And for all other Manc music news this year, be sure to follow our dedicated The Manc Audio page over on Instagram. Happy gigging, you lot.
Featured Images — Press Image (via Spotify)/The Manc Group
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Pitbull at Co-op Live, Manchester – please, don’t stop the party
Daisy Jackson
How bizarre it must be to be Pitbull. This is a man with, by all accounts, a pretty successful music career – but how bizarre for his trajectory to kick up so sharply now, 20 years after his debut album.
Watching the rapper, now 44 years old, dominate sold-out arenas across the world and become a social media sensation and something of a cult phenomenon is a joy to behold.
Who else could lead tens of thousands of people a night to party wearing a bald cap and a drawn-on goatee? Manchester donned their Pitbull costumes en masse and town looked all the better for it yesterday.
For anyone having even a hint of ‘I don’t get it’ in their minds, you’ve forgotten what nightclubs were like in the late 2000s. An era where we would post 80 blurry photos on Facebook from one night out, and our makeup bags were just Dream Matte Mousse and a kohl eyeliner.
It’s the same era where dance floors were absolutely dominated by Pitbull hits, from Hotel Room Service to Give Me Everything to International Love.
So his tour returning to Manchester feels like stepping back in time for all the 30-somethings in town, who all (myself included) decided to party like there were no consequences (currently staring into my cup of tea and remembering why I don’t usually drink wine on a school night).
The best thing about this gig is the way it strips all pretension away from all 23,500 people inside the Co-op Live. While we’d normally spend hours pampering and preening for a show to look our best, here we all stick a bald cap and a suit jacket on just let loose in a sea of people wearing the exact same uniform. I have never heard so many people breathlessly giggling their way through a show before.
And while the gig itself is quite silly and camp (there are scantily-clad dancers everywhere and the guy in charge of the pyrotechnics is pretty trigger-happy), there are some properly talented musicians on stage too.
Pitbull is backed by multiple percussionists, keyboards, guitars, woodwind and more, and his Latino roots shine with songs like Culo and Gasoline, where the dancers salsa and his hips get extra wriggly.
Pitbull staring out at his fans between songs in ManchesterPitbull brought the party to Manchester
We came because it’s silly but we stayed because it’s GOOD.
Prolific songwriter (‘Life is not a waste of time, time is not a waste of life. So let’s not waste any time, get wasted, and have the time of our lives’), party-starter, and philanthropist (he’s funded tuition-free schools in his hometown of Miami), Pitbull is soaking in every inch of the success that’s come his way.
On stage at Co-op Live in Manchester, the lights come up between songs to Pitbull stood on his little platform, grinning cheesily and looking over his assembled mini Pitbulls like a proud overlord. This man is having the time of his life.
Liam Gallagher teases post-Oasis reunion tour plans online
Danny Jones
Liam Gallagher is at it on social media again, and prior to a random posting spree in the early hours on Monday morning, he might have actually shed some light on his plans after the Oasis reunion tour over the weekend.
As always with anything the ever-vocal frontman says online, we urge you to take this with a pinch of salt.
Nevertheless, we’ve allowed ourselves to get very excited and hopeful that the Live ’25 tour isn’t just a one-off and that Oasis are back for good, at least as far as the younger Gallagher brother is concerned.
The latest excuse to be optimistic comes after Liam responded to a fan on Twitter asking whether or not people thought he would retire after the reunion shows, to which he simply responded:
Retire and make all the haters day not a fucking chance I’m in it right till last breath cmon you know
The co-manager and Ignition Management partner also told the outlet that there was currently no new music in the works. However, it was only recently that Liam himself – responding via X, once again – appeared to tell fans that a new album was already “in the bag”.
As for his response to McKinlay claims back in May, the 52-year-old simply posted: “The only people that will be making any kind of decisions on the future of OASIS will be ME & RKID, so let’s just take it one day at a time.”
He also confirmed the support acts and full reunion band lineup on the platform, too, so he’s not always just shouting aimlessly into the void for his own amusement. One can only hope…
Fingers crossed that both Liam and Noel Gallagher have plans for a VERY big finish to the reunion.
Both brothers are finally back in rehearsals ahead of the worldwide sellout shows this summer, and a number of apparent audio clips revealing how the comeback is sounding have appeared on the internet.
As well as being pictured attending the sessions in London, some supposed ‘setlists’ have also been leaked, though Liam himself has rubbished at least one image as an outright “FAKE” in his replies.
In fairness, the nation and fans all over the globe have waited so long that they’d probably be happy hearing pretty much any combination of songs at this point.
So yeah, only time will tell how serious he was being; then again, these are his most recent posts…
Danny Jones -
8th January 2024 
