Amongst some of us slightly older old gits, we sometimes indulge in impromptu pub banter about our favourite bands and performers (living or dead), our favourite tracks by said artists, which tracks we’d like to send us on our way when the mortal coil has shuffled off, and also, before our inevitable demise, which of these performers we would definitely bend over backwards to see live again.

Given the extremely eclectic company that I keep in the Carriers Quarters, and the fact that our accumulated time on the planet is, shall we say, ample, and also that our tastes converge and diverge quite a bit, these conversations have thrown up some belters over the years.

For my part, no list of acts which I’d like to experience live either again, or because I missed out first time round, would be complete without the Clash, MC5, the Velvet Underground, the Specials, Gram Parsons, and Chet Baker. From that very short shortlist, I’m acutely aware that death has robbed us of ever seeing any of them with their original line-ups ever again.

Just recently we lost the last surviving member of MC5, their drummer Dennis ‘Machine Gun’ Thompson. If you’re lucky enough to be young enough to never have heard anything by MC5, check out their live versions Motor City Is Burning and Kick Out The Jams from 1972 on YouTube.

When Wayne Kramer shoulders his Epiphone Coronet guitar on the first track imitating rifle fire, it’s one of the most visceral artistic representations of the disintegration of American society in the early 1970s whilst the Vietnam war was raging and being lost, and widespread inner city violence was in danger of puncturing the false premise of the American dream.

What would you pay now to see Wayne pulling off the same performance as America teeters on the brink of another potential disaster? Well, that’s a very good question.

Recently, Oasis announced that they would be reforming for a UK tour after a lengthy hiatus. Now, let’s get one thing out of the way. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with Noel Gallagher allegedly being hit recently with a £20 million divorce settlement pay-off. Oh no, according to Noel, it’s just all about timing. Definitely. Maybe.

In true Oasis style, a fair old rammy has kicked off since the tour was announced as it was soon discovered by their legions of fans that in order to see their working class heroes in all their Stone Island glory, they would need to cave in to what is cutely described as “dynamic pricing.”

This legal rip-off involves prices for tickets being adjusted in relation to demand and supply. So, for example, you may see tickets initially priced at £150, but by the time you’ve navigated the algorithms and queues online, you could be getting charged £350 for the same type of ticket.

Despite all of the ticket outlets claims of this being a legitimate way to do business, it’s just another example of punters being ripped off in broad daylight. And it’s not only a music business grift - airlines, hotels and travel companies do it all the time.

It should be pointed out that in this case, the band have stated that they have nothing to do with ticket sales and leave all that nasty business to promoters and their management. However, Liam responded to fans’ dismay at the set-up in the only way he knows how - by telling said fans to shut up and sarcastically sneered that if they were interested, he had shedloads of spare tickets and could get them a “kneeling ticket” for £100,000.

Now, there is no doubt that there will be thousands of fans who will love the fact that Liam is still the same old messianic, parka-wearing mouth of the masses who doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks. But do the band seriously expect anyone to believe that they couldn’t have exerted some influence and insisted on a fair ticket price across the board? I’m certainly not buying it.

When the Clash were due to release their fourth studio album, the sprawling, multi-genre Sandanista!, and despite resistance from their CBS label, they agreed to forego royalties from the first 200,000 sales of the treble album in the UK and a 50% cut in royalties elsewhere so that it could be released to fans at an affordable price.

Despite being a doddery old hippy, I’m pretty certain that Oasis would have more clout in these type of negotiations than Joe Strummer and the boys ever did, and could easily have insisted on putting their fans first.

Still, eye-watering ticket prices won’t put off anyone who has a real desire to see Liam strutting around like a seriously pissed off homunculus waggling a tambourine, or from watching Noel ripping off Stevie Wonder on Step Out, the B-side to Don’t Look Back In Anger. Yep, Stevie has a writing credit on Step Out, and also copped 10% of the royalties as Noel acknowledged its striking similarity to Stevie’s Uptight (Everything’s Alright). Mind you, wasn’t it Nick Cave who said that theft is the engine of progress?

I like good pop songs wherever they come from, but I certainly won’t be among the acolytes looking back in anger as they get shafted from this lot. ■