Getting High

by Paolo Hewitt

And a very real one. This is Oasis’s first reality check.

  In The Eye of the Hurricane

  Noel Gallagher came to with a start and for a brief two seconds wondered where the fuck he was. The floor he lay on was freezing cold and for some reason there was a bath next to him. Then he remembered.

  Round about four, with the ceiling spinning round, he had passed out drunk in his hotel bathroom. He was in Cardiff and, that’s right, he had just played two gigs at the large International Arena across the road. On the Tuesday night, Heavy Stereo, a new Creation signing, had supported, while the following night the Manic Street Preachers played their first gig since losing, in mysterious circumstances, their guitarist, Richey James.

  Oasis themselves had performed brilliantly over the two nights, but then they were so well drilled these days through constant playing, that they rarely played below a certain standard.

  Noel shivered, pulled himself up and then checked his watch. They were flying to Dublin today and he was due in the lobby at one-thirty.

  Battling, as usual, with his hangover, he showered and packed his bags. Then he realised that the ring he had left on the chest of drawers was gone. He searched the room carefully but still he couldn’t locate it. Now he started to get angry. This was a personal item of his and someone had entered the room and stolen it. It was the only explanation he could think of.

  No doubt, he bitterly thought to himself, it will sell in a Sotheby’s auction twenty years down the line and sell for thousands. He had to admit that this fame game was really getting on his tits now. It had been fun at first but now it was turning into a real drag, a real fucking drag.

  He came downstairs in a grumpy mood. Everyone was waiting on him except Liam. Very early that morning he had appeared in the lobby of the hotel with Patsy Kensit at his side and announced that they had decided to travel back to London before rejoining the group in Dublin the next night.

  On the way home they had phoned Chris Evans’ Radio One breakfast show. There had been reports in the papers that the couple had recently been arguing and that a split-up was imminent.

  They told Evans the stories were totally untrue; they were in love and happy as could be. The DJ would later broadcast the interview to millions of listeners all over the country.

  When Noel heard this story on the way to the airport, he was incredulous. ‘The dickhead, what’s he fucking playing at?’ he asked, shaking his head. ‘He’s in love.’ Noel sneered, ‘I’ll give him in love, the twat. He’s going to get some right proper stick for this.’

  The flight over was uneventful and by seven that night the band were ensconced in Dublin’s Westbury Hotel. ‘I’ll give you a shout if I decide to go out,’ Noel told Kevin the security man, ‘but I doubt it very much.’

  Then Noel checked into his room, gave it about ten minutes or so, and then sneaked downstairs and out of the hotel. He needed to spend time alone, get his head in shape.

  Noel moved quickly through the Dublin streets, the hood of his green jacket pulled up tight over his face. No one recognised him and the next day over morning coffee he was exultant.

  ‘Fucking gave Kevin the right slip,’ he told Alan White and Bonehead, raising his fist in triumph. ‘Walked all over town, top time.’

  It was 22 March 1996 and about eleven in the morning.

  The band decided to go shopping and Kevin accompanied them. It was his firm, Top Guard, that had been given the Oasis security job. The majority of their clients were boxers, but as this was one of the biggest jobs they had ever landed, Kevin had. personally taken charge.

  Halfway down the crowded main street, they were recognised. Kids stopped in their tracks and then surrounded them. If they went into a shop, mobs of them would wait outside.

  By the time they reached the end of the street, about fifty kids were walking with them. Noel was the main target and he 258 manfully struggled to sign their scraps of paper, but it was getting ridiculous.

  So they headed over to shops situated in a main student area where things might be cooler. On the way there, a guy in his mid-twenties stopped Noel.

  ‘I went to see Bruce Springsteen last night at The Point,’ he informed him. ‘That’s where you’re playing isn’t it?’

  ‘It is indeed,’ Noel replied.

  ‘Well, I had the pleasure of meeting Bruce and I asked him what he thought of youse lot. He said, he was glad that there was a good rock ‘n’ roll band around.’

  ‘Did he?’ Noel said, with obvious disinterest.

  At lunchtime, after visiting a few record and clothes shops, the boys stopped at a quiet cafe for lunch. They ordered the usual: eggs, sausages, beans, chips, bread, mugs of tea.

  Alan White had just bought a Motown Records compilation and over lunch he pulled the inner-sleeve of the record out. On each side was printed the covers of other Motown albums.

  ‘Let’s have a look at that,’ Noel said. He studied it for a minute and then said, ‘We should do that. Put all the sleeves of our records on the next album.’

  ‘Yeah, but it wouldn’t fill the page like that,’ Bonehead pointed out. ‘That’s all right,’ Noel replied, ‘we could use the rest of the page up with sleeves of all our favourite records. It would look ace.’

  ‘Top idea, Noel,’ Bonehead agreed.

  Noel handed the sleeve back to Whitey. ‘Another great idea from Brian Cannon, our sleeve designer,’ Noel said, sarcastically.

  After eating, the boys wandered back to the hotel. When they arrived there were something like a hundred shining young faces waiting for them.

  ‘Noel,’ they cried and rushed forward.

  Kevin quickly placed himself in front of Noel and then guided him through the screaming mob. As he did so, the most beatific smile appeared on Noel’s face as if he had been waiting all his life for this to happen.

  Later on that evening Liam and Patsy arrived. They went up to their room and within minutes had got into an almighty row. There were tears and crashes, shouting and screaming.

  Finally, Liam stalked off. To cool down, he sat in a chair by the lifts, glaring directly ahead of him. Anyone who approached him quickly backed off.

  When he had finally shaken off his sullen mood, he went out for a drink and found himself in a bar with Michael Hutchence, the INXS singer. The two had a history. They had had a run-in at the MTV awards in Paris, earlier in the year, supposedly concerning Hutchence’s girlfriend, Paula Yates, who had made no secret of her desire to bed Liam. This was their first meeting since that incident.

  In the bar everyone conspired to keep them apart. But the wild-hearted singer wasn’t having that, and soon there were words and insults thrown between both men. The next day’s papers wrongly reported they had exchanged punches.

  Meanwhile, the fans kept up their vigil outside the hotel. Some even spent the night outside and in the morning woke up knowing that as today was the first gig, at some point the band would have to make an appearance. There were fans at the front door and fans by the other exit.

  It was a drizzly day but the fans couldn’t care. They sang ‘Wonderwall’, ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ and then ‘Wonderwall’ again, and then they screamed because they thought they saw a band member peeping out of a bedroom window but it was only Terry the security man. So they groaned, started singing again.

  At one-thirty the band assembled in the lobby which was situated a floor above the street. Downstairs in the car park, three massive cars had their motors running. Kevin and Terry ushered the band into the staff lift and they shot down to the car park.

  Then they hopped into the cars and were driven out into the street where a police escort was quietly waiting. A few quickminded kids spotted the band and surrounded the car, banging on the roof as it sped off.

  The incident left the group in hysterics. They had seen all this in Beatles’ documentaries and now it was happening to them. Unreal.

  On the way to the Point, the car passed two leather-clad bikers, standing by the pavement with t
heir bikes. Noel immediately pushed open the car-roof, stood up and shouted ‘Sweaties!’ at them. ‘That’s what we used to call those bastards in Manchester,’ he explained to Alan White, sitting back down.

  At the Point, the band made straight for the stage. They ran through a few numbers, including ‘Free As A Bird’ by The Beatles, and then Noel soundchecked his acoustic guitar. The first song he played was ‘Ticket To Ride’. But unlike The Beatles’ recording, he played it as a ballad and it was achingly beautiful, Noel instantly locating the soul of Lennon’s bitter-sweet lament.

  Better was to come. Ireland have always held Oasis in great esteem. Every gig they had played there has been a staggering success, the crowds instantly relating to the Irish element of Noel’s music.

  ‘If you look at Gaelic bands, and I’m not likening us to any of them,’ Noel said in the dressing-room, ‘but if you look at the likes of U2, The Skids, Simple Minds, Stiff Little Fingers, The Undertones, they always had these rousing, fist-in-the-air choruses. And I suppose it’s also because we have this rootsy, folk feel on some of the other songs which you get subconsciously from your childhood.’

  Whatever it was, that night at the Point the Crowd was the wildest, the most committed, the most passionate the band had encountered in a long time. Given the reception Oasis receive at all their gigs, it was really saying something.

  From the front row to the back, a distance of hundreds of feet, the response remained the same; absolutely phenomenal. The crowd stamped, cheered, threw themselves around, lit lighters during Noel’s set and sang themselves hoarse.

  Oasis played out of their skins, putting everything they had into their playing.

  It was the kind of gig they had dreamed about when they were nobodies and scuffling around Manchester. Now it was theirs for the taking and they weren’t going to let it pass.

  Straight after this amazing concert, Noel and girlfriend Meg jumped into a car with a representative of Sony Ireland and were whisked away to the Gay Byrne Show, a live TV chatshow, the most popular programme in Ireland. Noel had agreed to make this appearance, mainly because it was one of Peggy’s favourite shows and partly because it would sell him a shitload more albums.

  On the way to the studio he was still visibly shaking from delight at the gig. ‘That crowd,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘fucking unbelievable.’

  By the time he walked on to the TV set to rapturous applause, he had somehow managed to compose himself, to make it look as if he had been out sightseeing all day and had now strolled in for a chat.

  It was a gentle, innocuous interview. Noel, dressed in a green-patterned, button-down shirt and light brown army trousers, opened up with an acoustic version of ‘Wonderwall’. Then he spoke with Gay Byrne, who asked him about songwriting and pressure.

  Noel answered with grace and humility, aware that this was one interview Peggy and her friends were bound to watch. There was no way he would embarrass her by getting out of order.

  He told Byrne that the gig he had just played was one of the best he had ever been involved in and that the band were too busy working to take much note of the massive hysteria surrounding them.

  ‘In the eye of the hurricane is where it’s calmest,’ he said, unconsciously quoting George Harrison from The Beatles’ Anthology on TV.

  A member of the audience asked him how long it could last for and Noel told him he hated predicting the future.

  ‘Look at The Beatles,’ he pointed out, ‘people used to ask them that and they’d say, ten months or whatever. But thirty years later they’re still releasing records.’

  With time running out, Noel picked up his guitar and then, just as he had done with ‘Ticket To Ride’, he transformed ‘Live Forever’, this time from a celebratory song into a reflective, at times mournful ballad.

  The crowd listened in absolute silence and then burst into genuine applause. Noel shyly acknowledged them (it was after all a performance that any mum could be proud of), and then he was gone, back to the Point where the bar was still open and there might be a chance of getting some gear.

  It seemed unlikely. Dublin was going through something of a drugs drought, and most people were settling on alcohol to do the trick. The band arrived back at the Westbury at about two in the morning.

  The bar was next to the lobby but everyone sat out in the hotel’s massive sitting-room. The atmosphere was calm, a kind of end-of-great-party vibe, until Noel happened to look over at a girl staring him out.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked her.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said aggressively, ‘how the fuck are you?’

  ‘I’m great,’ Noel warily said. Already, he had a sense of what was corning.

  ‘I bet you are,’ she bitterly said. Noel caught the inflection in her tone.

  ‘What did you say?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you care?’ she replied.

  ‘Look,’ Noel said, ‘have a drink, whatever, but don’t get cheeky, okay?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, tossing her head back, ‘and what are you going to do about that? Have me thrown out?’

  ‘If I wanted to I could, so shut it.’

  ‘Oh, you could, could you? Well, kiss your mother’s arse.’

  ‘Right.’ Noel put down his drink and looked over for his security guards.

  ‘Terry, Kevin,’ he shouted, motioning for them to come over.

  ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ the girl said.

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  Kevin arrived.

  ‘Throw this one out,’ Noel said simply, not even bothering to look at her.

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ she shouted. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’

  At which point, Liam’s ears pricked up. Three nights before in Cardiff, a similar incident had occurred. Liam had been sitting with Terry, Kevin and a fan. But the fan kept giving Liam lip, eventually flicking a cigarette at him. Liam stood up and walked away to another table.

  Kevin and Terry had grabbed the guy and threw him out of the hotel. As they did so, Liam looked over and shouted, ‘Oi, don’t fucking do that, he’s only a kid.’ He had been insulted but he was still on the guy’s side.

  Now he saw Noel throwing out what he thought was a fan and he came over to see what was happening.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.

  ‘Throwing her out,’ Noel lazily replied.

  ‘What the fuck for? What’s she done?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Yeah it fucking is. You can’t throw her out.’

  ‘Yes I can, I just have.’

  ‘You fucking dickhead.’

  At this, Noel leapt to his feet.

  ‘Look you,’ he shouted. ‘If I want to throw her out, I will and it’s nothing to do with you, all right?’

  ‘No, it ain’t fucking all right,’ Liam shouted back. Instantly, the brothers quickly moved towards each other and now their faces were nearly touching. In that very moment, for Noel and Liam Gallagher, the world had just disappeared. All they knew, all they saw, all they heard was each other. It was of no use whatsoever to try and separate them because they wouldn’t have even known that someone else was near them.

  ‘She insulted our mother, all right,’ Noel shouted. At that, Liam immediately backed off.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, raising his arms in compliance. ‘Got you.’

  ‘You’re the fucking best, Liam, okay,’ Noel continued, real passion in his voice, ‘the best there is, but you don’t mess in my business.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Liam, ‘sack it, fine.’

  And he walked away. Noel sat back down but the party was over now, destroyed in a few explosive minutes.

  The next day at the soundcheck, Noel revealed a new song. He shouted to Hugh, ‘Get this one down on tape otherwise I’ll forget it and won’t make any money, ha, ha, ha.’

  Then he started slamming out a burning riff and some huge chords and after a minute or so, the rest of the band joined in. They jammed on it fo
r over five minutes and Noel looked more than satisfied as he walked off-stage.

  The band’s mood was high. They knew what to expect from the crowd and couldn’t wait to get back on-stage. It was all such a buzz. In the kitchen, Phil Smith, their old roadie and friend was waiting for them. He had travelled over from Manchester, where he shared a house with Mark Coyle, to see them.

  The last time Noel had seen Phil was at their house. The three of them had sat in their sitting-room, playing easy-listening records while Phil and Noel made abusive comments to Mark about his support for Manchester United.

  That day, Noel had been to a meeting with Francis Lee, the City chairman, at City’s training ground. City wanted to print the name Oasis on their shirts the following season.

  ‘But tastefully,’ Lee pointed out. ‘Woven into the fabric like.’

  Noel made no commitment either way, just quietly listened and then told Lee and his representatives to call Marcus. It was obvious that he wasn’t 100% sure about the idea. But he had met Francis Lee.

  ‘So you coming to the game against Coventry, lad?’ Lee had asked him.

  ‘No way,’ Noel replied, ‘every time I go to see City they lose. It’s true. Once the players see me, they go, Oh shit, he’s here, we’ve had it. Then they don’t play well at all. I’ll watch it on telly, me.’

  Noel left the meeting and that night he went over to Phil and Mark’s house. When he got there he told them that he had given their number to their all-time idol, Burt Bacharach, who was trying to get in touch with Noel about some future recording.

  It was Mark and Phil who had put Noel on to Bacharach’s music. They all adored him equally. Noel often said that his own music could never match the quality of Bacharach’s. It pissed over most other people’s, and when it came to the man who composed ‘This Guy’s In Love With You’, probably Noel’s all-time favourite song, then forget it.

  That night, every time the phone rang, the boys would momentarily freeze and then either Phil or Mark would calmly go and answer the phone. But it was never him.

  Now, in Dublin, Phil was telling Noel, Burt had actually called a couple of days later. ‘So we’ve framed the phone,’ Phil told him excitedly, ‘because that’s the phone Burt Bacharach rang our house on.’