Getting High

by Paolo Hewitt

  But there was no breathing space for the band. On now to Europe and four dates in France, starting on 3 November in Lille, then shows in Paris, Lyon and Marseille.

  After the Paris show, which took place with lesser British talents at the Les Inrockutibles Festival, Liam was accused by Simone Foerst, deputy manager of the Amiral Duperre hotel, of being discovered ‘urinating in a corridor’, a charge he denies to this day, saying that a Gallagher was caught but it wasn’t him. Or his brother.

  The next morning it was discovered that Noel had gone missing. He was tracked down by the band’s security guard, Ian Robertson, who two years later would be sacked after an altercation with Liam, and who would then write a book about Oasis.

  Between the 6th and the 16th of November, Oasis were in Britain. On the 9th, Noel attended the Q Awards at the Park Lane Hotel. Oasis had won the Best New Act category. His acceptance speech was brief and to the point. He told the audience, which also included the Labour Party leader, Tony Blair, ‘To the readers – I’d just like to applaud your wisdom. Thanks.’ As he went back to his seat he was still trying to work out how Definitely Maybe had lost the Best LP award to the new Blur album Parklife, but he was photographed with Damon Albarn and spoke cordially to him.

  At the same time, Noel had started a relationship with MTV presenter Rebecca de Ruvo, whom the Daily Mirror would describe as ‘a leggy blonde’, despite her small stature.

  Noel had met her in New York through Evan Dando and he later discovered that Rebecca shared a ground-floor flat in Maida Vale with two other girls. There was Kadamba, an actress who would later have a fling with Liam, and footballer Matthew Le Tissier’s cousin, Meg Matthews, then running Flavor, a DJ booking agency she had set up with her friend Karl Castillo.

  Noel first met Meg that terrible day in November when Manchester United caned Manchester City 5-0, and Noel sat with Tim Abbot in the Landmark Hotel as miserable as sin. What made it even worse was that City hadn’t scored a goal, not like United who had at least managed one against City on the happiest day of Noel’s life.

  Abbot gloated, and Noel regularly snapped, ‘If you say one more thing I’m going to kick you out of this room.’

  The room, Meg recalls, was a tip, a rock ‘n’ roll bedroom. She had accompanied Rebecca and Kadamba to see Noel and remembered ‘things being strewn everywhere, a complete mess with his Q Award on top of the TV. I think his bill came to something like five grand, and that was just his drinks tab.’

  Her first impression of Noel was ‘friendly and quiet, a nice guy. I didn’t feel anything for him but they were doing a gig in Amsterdam about a week later and Tim was going to me, ‘You’ve got to come to the gig with Rebecca.” But Rebecca wanted to go to the MTV Awards so me and Kadamba went to Amsterdam.’

  On the 16th, Oasis kicked back into life again with three dates in Sweden, followed by four German concerts before the band returned to Amsterdam.

  It was on this tour that Liam was spotted in a Swedish service station stealing a bag of plastic razors. Their total value was somewhere in the region of £1.50. He was caught by two policemen as he tried to board the coach and ceremoniously frogmarched back to the shop to hand them over. The incident made the front-page of the papers the next day.

  Afterwards, on the coach, Liam firmly blamed Noel for the incident.

  ‘How the fuck can it be my fault?’ Noel demanded. ‘How do you manage to shift the blame on to me? Tell us, I really want to know.’

  Liam looked at his brother. ‘It’s your fucking fault because it was you who showed me where the razors were. You pointed them out to me.’

  ‘But I didn’t say steal them, did I?’

  ‘Nah, but I didn’t have any money.’

  ‘So why didn’t you ask to borrow some?’

  ‘You should have known that I would have to borrow some. But because you didn’t lend me any and you showed me where they were then it’s your fault I tried to steal them.’

  Noel thought about this for a few seconds. Then he said, ‘Liam, I have no idea how your brain comes up with this complete and utter shit, and nor do I want to know, but I tell ya, I have to hand it to you.’

  Back in Amsterdam, Noel met up with Meg, Kadamba and Abbot. After the gig, they visited the red-light district, went for drinks and then returned to the American hotel where ‘we just sort of sat up, talking and chatting’, Meg recalls. ‘We were like mates. I didn’t feel anything. Well, you don’t if your mate’s seeing someone because then they just sort of become androgynous to you. We just hung out and had a brilliant weekend.’

  Meg went back to London and Oasis moved back to Germany for a gig in Essen on the 27th and then on to the Botanieve in Brussels the next night. It was non-stop. Back to Britain now and another UK tour, kicking off at the Guildhall in Southampton and then up to the Octagon in Sheffield.

  At that gig the promoter said to Marcus and the band, ‘I want to show you the next place I want to put you on in Sheffield.’ They then drove over to the Sheffield Arena and walked into the 12,000-seater.

  Noel looked around at the huge hall and said to his manager, ‘He’s fucking joking, isn’t he? We’ll never sell this one.’

  Three days later, 4 December, they played the Corn Exchange in Cambridge, and queues stretched right round the block. Then they drove back to London to shoot the video for ‘Whatever’ at a Wimbledon studio.

  A day later, they assembled at the BBC studios in Maida Vale to record a session, to be transmitted near Christmas, for the increasingly prestigious Later show.

  Noel brought in an eight-piece string section to back the band on ‘Whatever’ and ‘I Am The Walrus’, and he also delivered ‘Sad Song’ on acoustic guitar.

  The next night came real proof of Liam’s impulsive nature. Onstage at Glasgow’s Barrow lands hall, a rowdier crowd than usual in front of them, Liam walked off-stage, complaining of a sore throat.

  Noel, sensing a potential riot, came back on and played an hour-long acoustic set. It was then decided to cancel a proposed Australian tour with Primal Scream in January so as to give Liam’s voice a rest. Plus, Bonehead’s girlfriend Kate was expecting to give birth in January. It would be a good time to rest up.

  They returned to Glasgow twenty days later to make up for the previous show, by which time they had played Wolverhampton, Cardiff and the Hammersmith Palais.

  At that show, Oasis used the string section and at one point in the show a fan threw a letter on-stage.

  ‘It says I’ve made some guy’s girlfriend pregnant,’ Noel said, reading out the letter to the crowd. It wasn’t a great gig but the shows at the Royal Court in Liverpool (where Noel finally met The La’s’ Lee Mavers), and the Academy in Manchester were.

  So was the Brighton Centre on the 29th where The La’s made a rare if somewhat erratic live appearance and Ride replaced The Verve. It proved to be Ride’s last-ever gig, the band splitting up the next year.

  Oasis finished 1994’s live schedule at the Town Hall in Middlesborough on 30 December. Discounting the aborted Newcastle show, this was their l05th show in 1994, over three times 1993’s twenty-seven appearances. There were also twenty-three Noel Gallagher songs now in circulation. And many of them were appearing in a lot of people’s top records of the year. Select magazine’s lists were typical: ‘Supersonic’ and ‘Live Forever’ were the two best singles of the year and Definitely Maybe was placed second behind Blur’s Parklife. Oasis were also second in the Band Of The Year category, Blur (that fucking name again!) in at one.

  It was ironic then that for their Top Of The Pops appearance in support of ‘Whatever’, it would be Blur’s Damon Albarn introducing the group with the words, ‘They’re wonderful.’

  For some reason, giant model dandelions had been placed onstage and Noel waved one behind Liam as he sang. The next morning, on Channel Four’s Big Breakfast Show, Oasis were named ‘Band Of The Year’.

  The only hitch was the news that The New Seekers were seeking damages from Noel for
his blatant steal of their song ‘I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing’. Noel always denied getting the melody for ‘Shakermaker’ from there, pointing instead to the Beatles’ instrumental ‘Flying’ as his source of inspiration. Eventually the matter was settled out of court. But Noel remained nonplussed. Nothing could stop his band now. They had trampled all over the likes of Suede, The Stone Roses had fallen badly, and even though Blur’s Parklife album refused to leave the top ten – give a shit. They’d get to them next year.

  Noel and Meg were now a couple.

  His relationship with Rebecca de Ruvo, such as it was, had slowly fizzled out, and because he was now living alone in a small rented flat near Primrose Hill, Meg told him that he could stay at her place over Christmas, until in fact he sorted out some better accommodation. Rebecca would hardly be there.

  Subsequently, Noel and Meg went to Christmas parties together, stayed up all night drinking and talking, and became firm friends.

  On the day he was filmed for the ‘Whatever’ video, Meg woke him on the sofa with a cup of tea, a can of Coca-Cola and a pile of vitamin pills.

  ‘I was going to him,’ she recalls, ‘you have got to take these vitamins and he was saying, “What are you talking about? Vitamins? You’re fucking joking, aren’t you?”’

  The video itself, directed again by Mark Szaszy, was a cheerful black-and-white film, Oasis larking around in a studio with the string section in tow. It was Christmas, there were smiles and lots of them. It had been a great year.

  To cap it off, on 19 December, ‘Whatever’ c/w ‘(It’s Good) To Be Free’, ‘Half The World Away’, and a live version of ‘Slideaway’ was released. The next week, the song that Noel cheekily described as ‘possibly one of the greatest songs ever’, was at number three in the charts.

  The week before its release, the song had already received a massive twenty-six plays on Radio One, and NME had called it ‘the best single of 1994’.

  But for the Oasis detractors, the ones who believed that Noel Gallagher was nothing more than a charlatan, ‘Whatever’, with its obvious Beatles’ influence, was the proof they needed to issue a warrant.

  Such charges would never have been made had Noel released the equally powerful ‘(It’s Good) To Be Free’ as the A-side, and recorded ‘Whatever’ as an acoustic B-side song. But where was the fun in that for the new Mancunian?

  With ‘Whatever’ (whose string melody Noel had sung into a cassette and then given to a ‘proper’ arranger to score the song), Noel could insert all kinds of Beatles’ references, like making Liam’s voice sound just like Lennon’s on the ‘Here in my mind’ lyric or recording the strings just as Beatles’ producer George Martin would have done.

  He didn’t care about the accusations that would be made. This emphasis on The Beatles had a pleasant side-effect. It neatly diverted attention right away from other sources such as The Stooges, The MCs, The Stones, early Bee Gees, U2, The Jam, Pink Floyd, Stones Roses, et al. Noel was having far too much fun to let any of that worry him, and the single itself was perfect for the times. Loud, uplifting, he could already hear it blasting from a thousand Christmas radios.

  As the single was being readied for release, Oasis played a live set for Radio One listeners from the Maida Vale studios. Commercial radio were still not playing Oasis and, as the band’s radio plugger Dylan White pointed out, it was a recently revitalised Radio One who had supported Oasis from day one.

  Oasis now had five days off for the festive holidays. Meg had invited Kadamba and another friend, Angie Parker, to spend Christmas with her and her parents in Liverpool.

  As Noel was due in Manchester, the four of them travelled up together. In the car, with Noel sitting in the front seat and Angie driving, Meg mentioned that after the Primal Scream show at Shepherd’s Bush, Abbot had returned to her house and somewhat the worse for wear had crashed out on her bed as she lay sleeping.

  ‘He did what?’ Noel snapped, turning round to face her and obviously very annoyed.

  ‘And I thought,’ Meg says, ‘that’s weird. Anyway, we got to Peggy’s and went in for a cup of tea. Liam was sitting there and I think he was a little nervous of me because I remember him accidentally kicking a cup of tea over and trying to clean it up.

  ‘Then we left and went back to Liverpool and I just crashed out at my mum and dad’s because I felt absolutely wrecked. In the morning, my gran said that Noel had called to wish me a Merry Christmas and I just thought, I’m missing him. It was the first time I had felt like that.’

  They spoke by phone that day and Noel invited Meg to a party in Liverpool. He also asked her to come to the re-arranged gig at Barrowlands. Ocean Colour Scene were supporting.

  On the night of the party, Meg slept with Noel in his hotel bed but nothing happened, the pair of them too nervous to make that first move, falling in and out of sleep, and further in love.

  The next day they travelled by coach to Glasgow. After the show, they went over to a club that played house music all night long. Noel soon got bored and left with two girls, telling Meg that he was going back to the coach.

  On his way out, Lisa M., Meg’s friend who would later start dating Liam, stopped him and asked him what he was doing. Hadn’t he sussed that Meg liked him?

  ‘Does she?’ he replied, obviously quite pleased.

  But when Meg got to the coach, Noel was nowhere to be seen.

  The coach was leaving at two in the morning and five minutes before they were due to move off, Meg heard various people saying, ‘Oh, don’t worry about Noel, he’s probably pulled, he can make his own way back.’

  ‘So, I thought to myself, right, I’m going back to the club because I feel a right twat. I don’t know any of them, I only know Noel and I’m not going to sit here for eight hours on my own on this bus. With two minutes to go, Noel walked on the coach with this big grin on his face and he says to me, “Oi, come over here.” So we went and sat in the front seat and he told me what Lisa had said. And then we snogged all the way back to London. It was lovely.’

  On the 29th, Oasis played Brighton. Before the gig, Noel went off to have a shower. Meg, who hadn’t bought a clean set of clothes, grabbed an iron and started ironing her shirt. Noel came out of the shower and said, ‘What the fuck are you ironing a dirty shirt for?’

  ‘And I was so embarrassed,’ Meg says, ‘cos you know what it’s like when you don’t really know someone. And then at the gig, he goes, “This is for the girl in the dirty shirt, she knows who she is,” and he said it twice. Coyley’s got it on tape and I was cringing.’

  Later, when Noel heard the tape, another spark went off in his mind. The girl with the dirty shirt, good song title that.

  On the 30th, they played Middlesborough Town Hall and the next night, New Year’s Eve, Noel and Meg arrived at the Sunday Social party in the Albany pub in London. Standing at the bar, a young, good-looking kid came up to Noel and wished him a happy New Year.

  ‘What’s the best thing to have happened to you in 1994?’ he asked. Without hesitation, Noel replied, ‘Meeting Paul Weller.’

  The couple only stayed for about ten minutes after that. But that wasn’t surprising. Noel had booked a bedroom suite at the pricey Landmark Hotel. He and Meg would see in 1995 with a bottle of Jack Daniels and each other.

  At that moment in time, they really couldn’t have asked for any more.

  Everybody’s talking about Britpop, trip-hop, Noel rock, Dad rock, but every smart band there ever was always avoided such categories.

  The music press had thought up these titles. They needed a movement. History had taught them that movements are good for business. They sell papers. So do slogans and this latest batch was the work of writers trying to get a grip on the influx of bands whose music had been so strongly informed by the past.

  To some, it looked like a conspiracy. As if everyone involved had secretly planned this coup and now here they all were, backslapping mates, appearing at each other’s concerts, appearing on each other’s rec
ords, all of them enthusing about The Beatles and Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones, The Small Faces and early Who music.

  Some writers were enthusiastic about this shift in music, but others hated it. They found the music too traditional and not progressive. They pointed to trip-hop or jungle as the way forward. Strange noises, different beats, other textures. It was reminiscent of the 1960s when the underground bands were the future and the craftsmen were the past.

  What people failed to note was that the 1990s groups, now gaining favour, now selling gigs and records, had emerged separately. It was the forces that had brought them to this point that were of far more interest.

  Most of these new musicians had grown up in the 1980s when music was judged by record sales and sounded fake, vapid. They had heard the empty sound of these people’s souls and been told to wake up before they go-go. It meant nothing. So they went back to basics.

  Throughout the 1980s The Beatles’ music was considered passé which might explain the often dire nature of much of that decade’s music. But in the 1990s, the musical tides threw them back on-shore and re-asserted the band as a major influence.

  For many groups who formed in the 1990s the only contemporary music that moved them was hip-hop and later, house. Young music, in other words. From the street and off the street.

  And the first UK group truly to inspire them were The Stone Roses. Lee Mavers and The La’s might have had the songs but the Roses had the look and the attitude to go with their music. They came over as if they, like their audience, spent their nights in clubs, high on hope, and then saw out the early morning hours listening to The Beatles, The Byrds and Neil Young.

  Not surprisingly, members of Oasis and Ocean Colour Scene were all present and correct at the Roses most famous concert, their gig on Spike Island.