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MEN columnist takes on the Gallagher brothers

A north-west newspaper columnist has upset some world famous rock stars after over 200,000 music fans descended on her “beloved” local park.

Angela Epstein, of the Manchester Evening News, lives in the Prestwich area of the city, home to Heaton Park.

But on Thursday Manchester’s favourite sons Noel and Liam Gallagher and their band Oasis began three nights of open-air concerts which appeared to upset the columnist.

She wrote on Thursday: “I’ve been smouldering about this ever since I first heard that Liam and his band of merry men were planning to play in my beloved park.

“And I’m not a lone voice. Mention the concerts to anyone locally, and before you can say Wonderwall, you’ll feel the gale-force invective of residents horrified that some 70,000 – 70,000! – fans a night will be taking to the quiet streets of Prestwich.”

Her comment obviously hit home with the Gallaghers as singer Liam apparently “dedicated” the song Cigarettes and Alcohol to her on the opening night.

Angela retorted in a column on Sunday that, while she was flattered by Liam’s tribute, she “didn’t even know he could read” and the whole episode had not changed her mind about the gigs.

Unable to let sleeping dogs lie, Gallagher Snr joined the debate on his blog by offering the journalist what he called some “kudos” – although he failed to spell her name correctly.

Noel wrote: “I feel though that I must just give one final little bit of “kudos” (her word, not mine) to Angela Bernstein (sic) – a ginger whinger from the MEN who has written a couple of sh***y little pieces over the last few days.

“In them she claimed that we – and by that I mean YOU – had no ‘right’ to ‘come up here’ from London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Tokyo, LA, Milan, all over the world in fact, to ‘her’ wonderful piece of England and enjoy ourselves and leave a little bit of mud.

“What a joyless old husk!!”

Comments

Metman (11/06/2009 11:10:34)
Noel would have done better to ignore the MEN nobody else bothers to read it.

Gig-goer (11/06/2009 13:25:06)
I was at the gig. We smashed up bottles in each other’s faces, urinated in people’s gardens, threw bricks throgh resident’s windows. Cos that’s what we Oasis fans do like! Oh wait, that never happened. Shock horror – it was a peaceful and joyous event at a public venue (“sorry Angela, don’t care if you live nearby, you can pay to get in too”). And wait – Angela’s neighbours enjoyed themselves too, selling nice cold beers and tasty food from their doortsteps and engaging in banter. Cheers Angela!

Paul J (11/06/2009 18:12:27)
What a miserable old woman. Hotels/pubs/restaurants took a ton of money from all the extra people in the city, think everyone was very good natured. Bet she moaned about the Pope when all the people arrived to see him in the early 80’s