by Paolo Hewitt
‘I basically chilled out,’ he says, ‘I didn’t speak to hardly anyone, didn’t go out, didn’t leave the house except to have loads of blood tests, went to about four of five different doctors, urine tests, hair tests, I had everything until they finally diagnosed me. Then once they found out what was wrong, they prescribed me these tablets and it was proper way-hey the very next day. Everything was back to normal.’
But the cure wasn’t really so immediate. As Guigsy slowly healed, Oasis moved the tour back a month and then sat down to work out a temporary replacement. Alan White suggested using Julian Taylor from his old band Star Club. But Liam wasn’t having that.
‘He’s got to be from Manchester,’ he stated, ‘Can’t have any more cocknees in the group. No offence, Alan, but you know what I mean.’
Eventually, they decided to approach Scott Mcleod of The Ya Ya’s. He agreed to join on a temporary basis and rehearsals finally got underway at John Henry’s studio. During this period, Liam and Noel also attended a birthday party in King’s Cross for James Brown, editor of Loaded magazine.
Everybody had a drink, everybody had a line, everybody had a good time. But as they were leaving, one of the guys on the door called Liam a dickhead. Before even he could react, Noel was upon him.
‘Don’t you ever call my brother that,’ he roared. And then the two brothers laid into him before exiting and going their very separate ways.
Seventeen
On 12 September 1995 Oasis attended the Mercury Awards at London’s Savoy Hotel. They didn’t win but part of the ceremony involved every nominated artist receiving a plaque and making a speech.
Noel stood on-stage and said he’d like to thank... then he read the menu out. Liam said, ‘I’d like to thank myself’, and Noel added, ‘all six of him’.
In Europe, MTV ran part of the interview they had conducted with Noel in July. This included his acoustic rendering of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’. Noel ended the song and said, ‘Better than Blur any day’.
It now felt like the world was dividing itself into two camps, Oasis or Blur. In football, there was Cantona (Oasis) or Shearer (Blur). In snooker, Ronnie O’Sullivan (Oasis) or Stephen Hendry (Blur).
But perhaps the best example of this was Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting novel which was now selling at a phenomenal pace, the first time in ages that an authentic British working-class writer had smashed his way into the smug literary world, making no secret of his roots or his pure 1990s lifestyle.
If Irvine’s outlook was Oasis, then the other recent publishing success, Nick Hornby with his two books Fever Pitch and High Fidelity was Blur.
Noel would meet Irvine Welsh the following year at the Cannes Film Festival where Trainspotting, the film of the book was being shown. Noel and Meg hung out all night with the Scottish writer who, every twenty minutes or so, would grab the Oasis man and roar, ‘I knew you’d be a good bloke, Noel, I knew it, you wee fucker.’
Irvine’s huge success would slightly open the gates for other like-minded writers, such as John King and his The Football Factory novel, in precisely the same way that Oasis now had A&R men scurrying around towns desperate to sign the ‘new Oasis’.
Again, there were parallels with the 1960s. Just as many of the major groups socialised together then and made various guest appearances on each other’s records, so many of the new 1990s groups forged a similarly healthy relationship. Most groups didn’t see each other as rivals but as complementing each other.
Indeed, after their Irvine Beach show, Noel imagined people such as Primal Scream, Weller, Ocean Colour Scene and Cast all releasing albums on the same day and advertising the fact by being photographed together holding up each other’s albums. He was also keen to host a huge open-air concert and call it Mods In The Park.
The success of Oasis had also introduced other elements into the culture. Now, instead of things being ‘wicked’, they were ‘top’. People you didn’t like were ‘dickheads’, and you were ‘arsed’ about things you didn’t care about.
Hedonism, drugs, Mods, scooters, The Beatles, again and again, the echo of the 1960s provided the underlay for 1990s pop culture. The only difference was economic. Most teenagers had money in the 1960s; in the 1990s, British society was characterised by the huge and ever-increasing gulf between rich and poor. The latter had to withstand, among many things, attacks on free medicine, social security and council housing. This laid the conditions for what the Right-wing termed as the underclass, the poorest of the poor. In one of their earliest recordings ‘Bring It On Down’ Oasis firmly represented the latter.
To that end Noel publicly supported the Labour leader, Tony Blair, bringing to mind the relationship that existed between The Beatles and Harold Wilson, the then Prime Minister.
Noel met Blair at the Q Awards and was astonished when the Labour leader informed him that he listened to the first Oasis album on his way to work by car.
In football, the 1960s were also brought to mind when England hosted the Euro ‘96 competition. In June 1996 at Wembley, England would again outplay Germany, just as they had done thirty years previously, but this time they would sleep with defeat in their mouths.
But Oasis wouldn’t. (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, despite the reviews, smashed its way straight in at number one, the week their UK tour finished. Oasis had played Blackpool, Stoke, Bournemouth and Gloucester. Vital Distribution reported that an extra 150,000 copies had been ordered by shops in the first week, topping up the 400,000 that were originally sent out.
On 10 October, Oasis left for yet another US tour. There were signs now that America was starting to move their way a little. In its first week of release Morning Glory had sold some 250,000 copies in the US, an encouraging sign.
Also, the industry publication Music Week had just held a US radio workshop in London’s Hurlingham Club. Eight of the most prominent radio planners in the States were played one track each from new successful UK bands. The playlist included, Supergrass, Blur, Pulp, Black Grape and Oasis.
The panel voted ‘Morning Glory’ as the track most likely to succeed in their country, Brian Phillips of Atlanta Radio adding, ‘This isn’t even the best track on the album. If this doesn’t work then I give up.’
Encouragingly, Black Grape’s ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ came second, and Ash’s ‘Girl From Mars’ third. Blur’s ‘The Universal’ and Pulp’s ‘Common People’ were deemed ‘too English’.
Compared to previous excursions, this was a short US tour. Earls Court was looming and nobody wanted an exhausted Oasis taking the stage.
The journey started in Baltimore, then on to gigs in New York, Danbury, Boston, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Toronto, Detroit and Chicago.
The band would also slot in a crucial TV appearance in New York on the massively popular David Letterman Show. The show was televised from the Ed Sullivan Theater, the exact venue and stage on which The Beatles had conquered America in February 1964, with a performance containing just five songs.
After the Pittsburgh show, tour manager Maggie was sitting by herself on the coach when Scott Mcleod, the temporary bassist, sat down beside her.
‘I want to go home,’ he stated.
‘Yeah, don’t we all?’ she lightly agreed.
‘No, I want to go home.’
Which is what he did. While the band slept, he demanded that Maggie get him a flight to Manchester. He flew out the next day, with four gigs to go. When they woke up, Oasis were stunned to find another member had flown the coop.
‘What is it about bass players in this band?’ Noel wondered. ‘One minute, this guy is signing on, then suddenly he’s in the biggest band in Britain, getting a decent wedge, and he pisses off.’
They had to laugh.
Liam then put forward a suggestion. ‘Why don’t we fly out that bass player Whitey was talking about. Get him in.’
Noel looked at him in amazement. This is what had first been suggested.
‘Liam,’ he said, ‘You are either a genius or t
he biggest dickhead on the planet. I really can’t work out which one.’
Which of course was a major part of Liam’s appeal. He really was a one-off. Take for instance his comments on his brother’s avid interest in UFOs. Noel firmly believes in their existence Liam is somewhat more pragmatic.
‘If I saw an alien,’ he said, ‘I’d tell it to fuck right off because whatever planet he came from they wouldn’t have The Beatles or any decent fucking music. So they can fuck right off, I ain’t going nowhere with them.’
About God, he said, ‘If a guy suddenly appears before me with a big beard and locks and all that caper and performed some fucking miracle, and then said to me, “Liam, I am God” I’d say, “Fair enough, it’s a fair cop. I didn’t believe in you but fair play, you’ve got me.” But until that day comes he can fuck right off.’
Liam never had much time for God. Back in his childhood he and his brothers desperately tried to get their mother away from Thomas but her religion held her back.
That meant more violence against all of them, more pain. Liam expressed his through his aggression and Noel took on his father the best way he could. Through music. You play guitar, dad? Well, so do I. But better. People know you in town? People all over the world know me, mate.
The success of Oasis was Noel’s private revenge on his father, and a major factor in his unceasing workrate.
Music was the Gallaghers’ saviour, not religion. Music put them in a different world, a far far better world. That was their heaven on earth, their salvation. Nothing else.
Noel wasn’t a believer in any sense. He was just waiting for the UFOs. But Liam had, without reading any books, become a natural Buddhist. His firm belief is that the soul never dies. The body does but your spirit survives. You really do live forever. Which is why he is adamant that Lennon’s spirit is inside him.
He thinks that it happened when he was a teenager and he had a out-of-body experience. Suddenly, he was looking down upon himself and in that moment, he says, Lennon slipped inside him.
‘I don’t care if it sounds fucking mad,’ he viciously states. And he doesn’t, because he believes in the spirit and he believes in music. Those are the two most unshakeable beliefs Liam has. Again, he embodies two major elements of the 1990s. Laddishness and spiritualism.
Noel says, ‘I believe in black and white. Liam’s all over the shop.’
Bonehead says, ‘You’re all fucking mad. What are we going to do about Scott?’
Cancel the remaining gigs, go to New York and play the TV show was the answer.
Which is what they did. They arrived at the Ed Sullivan Theater to discover that the actor William Shatner would be one of Letterman’s guests.
Noel said to Liam, ‘Guess who’s on?’
‘Who?’
‘Captain Kirk.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Captain Kirk. William Shatner.’
‘Don’t know him.’
Noel stopped for a second. Then he said, ‘T.J. Hooker.’
‘Oh him. Really? Fucking ace.’
Bonehead played bass and the band ripped through ‘Morning Glory’, the song that had been released to the radio. Then they flew home. They had no bass player and the biggest gigs of their career were just two weeks away.
Marcus phoned Guigsy to see how he was and inform him about Scott’s unexpected disappearance. Guigsy said, ‘Fuck it, if the doctor says it’s all right and you can get us a couple of days’ rehearsals, let’s fucking do it.’
It was the first bit of good news since the album’s release, made better when Guigsy’s doctor said, ‘Fine, just come back for a check-up every seven days.’
A relieved Marcus booked the band into John Henry’s studio.
‘I don’t think we even played our old tunes,’ Guigsy says. ‘We just started jamming for a couple of hours and then we ‘went to the pub for a bit because I didn’t want to come back as a stretcher case, I couldn’t do that. I had to go back as me again.’
On 30 October, Creation released the eagerly-awaited new Oasis single ‘Wonderwall’ c/w ‘Round Are Way’, ‘The Swamp Song’ and ‘The Masterplan’.
In the three weeks preceding its release, Radio One had played ‘Wonderwall’ forty-three times, and commercial radio had now realised the error of their ways and now they too were busy giving the song plenty of air-space.
In terms of Oasis singles ‘Wonderwall’ was a complete departure for them. Every single so far had been up-tempo, and most of them were about optimism in the face of adversity. ‘You gotta roll with it.’ ‘You got to make it happen.’ ‘We’re going to live forever.’ ‘Get a grip on yourself, it don’t cost much.’ ‘You need to be yourself.’ ‘Some might say we will find a better way.’
‘Wonderwall’ was far more personal. It was acoustic-based, although backed with a beat that verged on hip-hop, and it showcased a different side to Liam’s vocals. Within a month of its release, it had become the most popular song of the year. It was sung everywhere. In pubs, on football terraces, everywhere that people congregated. It not only further increased their popularity in the UK but it broke America for them.
Better still, the single also contained two major songs. Earlier that year, Noel had attended the fifth anniversary of the 6Ts club, a monthly Northern Soul session held at London’s 100 Club.
It wasn’t so much the music that grabbed him. Rather it was the dedication of the crowd to the music, their fashions and unique dances. He also dug the fact that when you weren’t nonstop dancing, you could take time out to browse through the record stalls that were placed in the club itself.
‘Round Are Way’ then was his tribute to the scene. The song (reminiscent in parts of The Jam’s ‘Eton Rifles’) thrives, like so many Northern tracks, on a straight-ahead beat (the drums being phased in tribute to Kenny Jones’s drums on ‘Itchycoo Park’, an effect that Noel wished he’d used on ‘Wonderwall’) a blaring horn melody and celebratory lyrics (‘Round are way / The birds are singing’) that match the music’s untainted joyfulness.
‘The Swamp Song’ is edgy and cocaine tight, and ‘The Masterplan’ is one of his finest musical achievements and can only be found on the B-side of the CD version of ‘Wonderwall’. Overall the package is probably the best Oasis single to date. But it never made the number-one slot. Robson and Jerome, two actors from the hit UK TV series Soldier, Soldier, kept it off the top with their version of ‘I Believe’.
Even though Oasis were the biggest band in the country, Noel would have to wait to secure his four number ones.
On the day of ‘Wonderwall’s release, Oasis managed to sneak into Camden Town’s the Underworld pub that had once banned them, to check out a new young Manchester group called Northern Uproar. Then it was on to a late-night drinking club in Farringdon.
They rose the next morning with hangovers and caught the train to the La Luna venue in Brussels where Guigsy fitted himself back into the side.
On the last song, Liam’s voice went. He kicked the microphone stand into the crowd and walked off.
The next day they arrived back in Britain, on 1 November, and resumed rehearsals. That lasted two days.
On the Friday, Noel went down to Earls Court to see how the preparations were going. Their road crew had just one week to erect the necessary equipment, a task that normally takes three weeks.
The next day, the new Mancunians woke up determined to show London and the world just who was boss.
That morning, Meg was up by eight o’clock. She stood in her small kitchen talking on the phone so loudly that she eventually woke Noel up. She was in something of a frenzied mood.
Meg had been handed the task of organising the two after-gig parties and, of course, everybody but everybody was screaming for tickets. Apart from key friends, Oasis and Creation personnel, journalists, radio and TV people, there was also U2, George Michael, and maybe Madonna was coming. Oh, and don’t forget Elton and Bowie, maybe the Stones, they all had to be accommodated.
Oasis were nonplussed by the big-name guests. U2 were fine, but the guest they were really excited about seeing was John Squire of The Stone Roses.
‘If he comes,’ Liam said, ‘it will be the first night out he’s had since 1987. How mad is that?’ The only guest that Noel was disappointed to find couldn’t make it was Paul Weller.
Meg left the house at about ten. Noel got up, watched BBCl’s Football Focus. Soon after, Les arrived to take him to the show. In the car, Les said, ‘Noel, where do The Who live?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Live at Leeds.’
On Marylebone High Street, they were caught up in a traffic jam. ‘Where’s the fucking police escort when you need it?’ Les asked.
‘Put the radio on,’ Noel requested.
Les flicked the dial. The unmistakable sound of Blur came through. Les quickly changed stations.
‘Put that back on,’ Noel said.
Les complied and Blur’s new single ‘The Universal’ filled the car. When it finished Noel, who had listened intently throughout, said, Tm sorry but I can’t hear a tune in that song.’ He gazed out of the window.
‘Can’t fucking wait to see The Bootleg Beatles tonight,’ he said. Oasis had offered the support slot first to Richard Ashcroft who now left his group, The Verve, and then to Smaller, but both acts turned them down. Now, Britain’s best Beatles’ copyist band would take their place. Later, when he met their guitarist, Noel asked, ‘Do you play anything other than Beatles’ songs.’
‘No,’ came the reply.
‘Nor do I, mate,’ Noel said with a smile.
The traffic finally eased up and soon Les was driving past Earls Court arena, where two massive pictures of Noel and Liam flanked the main entrance, before turning right and then into the backstage area. The first thing Noel saw when he got out of the car were the five Velocifero scooters.
Then he walked out into the arena and greeted all the road crew. They were all desperately scurrying around, determined to get everything in place for the soundcheck. Their expressions were grim, like runners in a marathon. High above this hive of activity, massive black drapes had been hung on the ceiling to improve the sound.