FA Cup of British Rock - Quarterfinals - Match #3

These are the ground rules: 16 8 teams, each represented by a musician or band who happens to be a supporter. You, our fair reader, vote on who advances. Use whatever criteria you wish: favorite team, favorite band, prettiest uniforms (looking at you Elton), etc. Ballot stuffing is not encouraged, but will be tolerated, because we’re just as corrupt as the real FA. Voting closes this Sunday, July 27.

Long live rockathon, my friends. The FA Cup of British Rock is a turbo-charged custom van that is flying down the highway at 95 mph. It simply cannot be stopped!! Today there's a double-header of Quarterfinal matches, the first of which pits an army of vote-wielding supporters against a man named Noel. See for yourself...




The Darkness, seen here on a shaky punter cam from a gig in -- where else? -- Norwich


- versus -



Oasis, who, as Noel explains circa 2003, will always be Man City fans (key quot is at 2:05 where he says he would rather "kick my door up my arse than support United or Arsenal" ... can you really kick a door up your own arse?)


So, we might as well just hand the FA Cup of British Rock trophy to the mighty Norwich City army, summoned by our own Bigus Dickus. And to that I say, fair play! Unlike the likely result in a real footy match, Norwich City knocked off Liverpool FC in the Round of 16, despite being represented by a band that broke up after only two albums and had maybe one decent song in their repertoire. The Darkness were built solely around Justin Hawkins' falsetto, yet still managed to sell millions of CDs. Kids today! Of course, at the time that Justin left the Darkness, there were rumors of drug abuse. This, of course, is something that our next group would know something about....


You can certainly divide people into two categories: People who (still) love Oasis, and people you hate Oasis. Put me in the first category. I remember hearing about their first gig in Detroit (where I lived at the time) in 1994, where they had to repeat one of their songs during the second encore because they'd run through their entire catalog already (songs off Definitely Maybe plus "I am the Walrus"... and nothing else). I was at a show some time around 2000, where Liam spent the entire show glowering at us Midwesterners in the audience (trust me, we deserved it). And I even think that Don't Believe the Truth was pretty good, especially Noel's tribute songs to Lee Mavers. I always thought it was fitting that, despite being the biggest rock band in the world for a very short time, Oasis would support Man City, the plucky underdog.

So, which team is the true underdog in this contest? Only you can decide!