Cast Return to New York After 29 Years
The Liverpool Britpop greats play Sony Hall on Sept. 3
The last time Cast played the New York Metropolitan area, it was 1996 and there was a bit of a discrepancy with customs upon entry into the United States.
“We had left for New York from Toronto, and our guitar tech got caught because he left his passport, so he got taken off the bus and arrested,” explains guitarist Liam “Skin” Tyson. “So we didn’t have a guitar tech for our New York show. But at the very end of the show, which was a great show, he came in through the door on the side of the stage for the very last number. So that was our last show in New York. He got taken and arrested off the bus.”
Fast forward to 29 years later, and customs is even a dodgier proposition in this current age of random ICE raids and militarized cities. But for Tyson and his mates, rounded out by lead vocalist John Power (formerly of The La’s), drummer Keith O’Neill and bassist Jay Lewis, they are just excited about coming back to the Big Apple to play a headlining gig at Sony Hall on Sept. 3.
“Our friend’s got like this Liverpool pub in New York City, and he’s been advertising the gig in there, so hopefully we’ll get a few Scouses and a few New Yorkers in there to check us out, and it should be alright. He’s been spreading the word in his bar and putting up posters and all that.”
The band will be playing material from their latest album, 2024’s Love is the Call and their forthcoming 2026 title Yeah Yeah Yeah, the first single of which, “Way Its Gotta Be (Oh Yeah),” features guest vocals from London’s First Lady of Soul P.P. Arnold.
“This is an album of two halves,” Tyson explains of Yeah Yeah Yeah. “It’s definitely got some Rolling Stones vibes to it. And there’s a couple of songs like that, and there’s a psychedelic cowboy song in there somewhere as well. Then in the second half it goes in a different style, with anthemic tunes and wide open spaces, which is something we never really went for. It’s very different from what Cast normally do.”
The band will also be playing material from their classic debut LP All Change, which turns 30 on Oct. 16.
“That album, we played those songs for a year before we recorded it,” explains Tyson. “It was such an easy and enjoyable process working on it. And we had (legendary Britpop producer) John Leckie working with us. He was sort of our spiritual guru. I think he changed all our lives: mentally, physically, musically. Everything. We learned a lot from him.”
Lest we forget to mention, Cast are also in town because they are opening for Oasis during the reunited Gallagher brothers’ highly anticipated two-night stand at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey prior to the Sony Hall show.
“It keeps getting better each day,” Tyson smiles. “Big gigs are easy; even bigger gigs are easier. It’s beyond doing gigs, it’s more of a happening, you know? I was saying to the guys (in Oasis), ‘How can you sing when you got 80,000 people singing louder than you? (laughs). And they all sing the guitar riffs as well.”
Cast and Oasis go back a long way, and it was those connections that led the Gallaghers to reach out to the band for the opening slot, especially after they opened for Liam Gallagher on his solo tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of Oasis’s debut LP Definitely Maybe.
VIDEO: Cast “Way It’s Gotta Be (Oh Yeah)”
“We go back from the early days, but this actual tour because last year we did the Liam Gallagher tour, and that rekindled the flames with him,” Tyson explains. “And I’ve seen Noel over the years, because my friends have been in a band with him – the High Flying Birds – for years. So we always had a little connection with them. But it was that tour with Liam Gallagher that really made this happen.”
And no doubt the New York area is indeed ready to welcome both bands with open arms.
“(Oasis) were maybe thinking how it was going to be over there, and if it was going to be like it was the last time they were over there (when the group played Madison Square Garden in 2008 during the tour in support of their last studio album, Dig Out Your Soul),” explains Tyson. “But I don’t think so. I think, for Oasis, the excitement and anticipation for this show is gonna be awesome. Two generations will be there: It will be the youngsters who missed it all, and then it will be the ones who went but now they can let themselves go because we’re all older and wiser and you don’t have to be cool. You can just go and enjoy yourself these days.”
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