Noel Gallagher announces Tom Meighan as 2023 UK arena tour support act

nme.com:

Noel Gallagher‘s High Flying Birds have announced former Kasabian frontman Tom Meighan as the support act for their 2023 UK arena tour.Gallagher and his band will hit the road later this year for a series of gigs behind new album ‘Council Skies’.Now, it’s been confirmed that Meighan will support the band on the December dates, which begin in London at Wembley Arena.

It comes after he played with Gallagher at an Essex show this weekend (August 5).Meighan was convicted of abusing his partner, Vikki Ager, in 2020 and sentenced at Leicester Magistrates Court to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work after pleading guilty.Around the time of the conviction, he parted ways with Kasabian – the chart-topping band he co-founded in 1997 – and explained that he had struggled “for many years with alcohol addiction” as well as seeing the events as a “wake-up call”.

He and Ager went on to be married, with Meighan diagnosed with ADHD and saying that he was “deeply ashamed” of his abusive actions.He went on to launch a solo career at the end of 2021, and play a number of headline shows and festival dates.

His debut solo album ‘The Reckoning’ came out in May. Last year saw Kasabian release their seventh album ‘The Alchemist’s Euphoria‘ – their first without Meighan as frontman.Earlier this year, organisers of Sheffield’s Be Reyt Festival defended their decision to book Meighan as the headline act for the May event.In a statement, they deemed the booking a “second chance”.