by Paolo Hewitt
‘All I know,’ he said, standing up and stretching, ‘is that I need a week in bed. That’s all I need. One week. Do you think they’ll give it to me?’ And he ruefully smiled.
With the soundcheck now over, Noel had hopped into a car and was driven to a local radio station to be interviewed.
‘The last time I was on it,’ Noel said before departing, ‘the DJ said, “And now we have Oasis, one of the biggest bands to come out of Manchester this year.” I said, “Us and who else pal? Come on, who else?” This was live on air. I’m amazed they’re having me back on.’
That night’s support group, The Chemical Brothers, come onstage round about seven forty-five. Torn and Ed stand behind a bewildering amount of machinery and fill the arena with huge drumbeats, sampled voices and analogue synths. Their music is derived from hip-hop and house, funk and rock, and, like Oasis’s music, it could only have been made in the 1990s. The genuinely warm reception they receive, is a testament to this decade’s musical stance.
In the 1980s, music had been divided. People spoke about it like they would their football team. Who do you support? Indie music. Fuck off mate, hip-hop is going to win the league.
Now that is over. In the 1990s there is only good music or bad music, good bands or bad bands, good people, bad people. The Berlin Wall went down in 1989, and so did a lot of other things.
At eight forty-five the lights darken, Steve Winwood’s voice trails away from the speakers, and Noel Gallagher, Alan White, Guigsy and Bonehead walk on-stage to be drenched in the applause of nearly 20,000 people. Oasis are home, sweet and bitter home.
The four of them wave to the crowd, and a lone scouser shouts, ‘Flash bastards!’
Noel pulls on his guitar, a red Epiphone Riviera, looks at Alan White and hits the opening chords to ‘Swamp Song’. As his fingers pick out the riff that sounds like Marc Bolan misplaying Norman Greenbaum’s ‘Spirit In The Sky’, Noel nods his head, Alan White plays a loud drum-fill and all the band come in. Bonehead takes over the rhythm and Noel begins to make his guitar screech. Already it’s a juggernaut of sound, crushing all in its way.
Halfway through this instrumental, Liam walks on-stage, banging his tambourine. The crowd erupt again. Liam nods his head in recognition and then walks right to the front of the stage. He deliberately does this at every gig, goes up and stares the audience out, all the time menacingly hitting the tambourine he holds against his hand.
In a street fight it is always the one who doesn’t back down that has the better of it. Fronting your opponent instils real fear in them. As Liam’s nature dictates that he never backs away from anything, even in the face of huge odds, this was his way of psyching out the opponent and killing his own nerves.
The rest of the band take no notice of him. They either concentrate on their instruments or stare out the crowd.
After confronting the audience, Liam walks back towards his mike and shouts, ‘Mad for it.’
Noel again looks over at Alan, a signal that the song is about to end. As Noel hits the final notes, Alan finishes with a huge flourish of his cymbals. Noel slowly walks back to his amp to extract howls of feedback from his guitar.
‘Manchester,’ Liam says amidst the noise and then Noel hits the jagged opening chords to ‘Acquiesce’. The crowd roar in approval. Noel stands absolutely still as Alan’s drums come thundering in and Liam places his hands behind his back and starts singing, ‘I don’t know what it is that makes me feel this way.’
And the whole crowd sing the lines with him, instantly turning into a seething mass, a swarming creature that jumps together and shouts together. Oasis have in their music, words and deeds, inherently always promised a good time. Tonight, Manchester will make sure that their word is good.
Oasis are so well loved and respected, no one comes to their shows with a cynical frame of mind or a ‘prove it’ attitude. People come to celebrate, to renew their faith. This is their music, their songs, their band, their chance to lose themselves.
Noel taps his feet a few times but soon desists as he turns to the mike and, in unison with his younger brother, starts singing the chorus. ‘But we need each other / We believe in each other.’ The line is pregnant with meaning, but more than that the strength of their singing adds a new dimension to the Oasis sound, a level that has only briefly been caught on record. Noel and Liam, in perfect harmony.
‘Acquiesce’ shows Noel’s voice to be more powerful than say Keith Richards’s, but not as rounded ‘as Rod Stewart’s in his prime. It is far more effective when heard in a sparser musical situation. In a live-band situation it tends to get drowned out a little, lacking the sheer strength of his brother’s vocal.
The song finishes to rapturous applause. The girl by the barrier in the orange T-shirt holds her hand to her mouth as if she is witnessing a miracle.
‘Cheers,’ Liam says. ‘”Supersonic”.’ It is a sucker punch opening. Two B-sides to go and then a major hit single to raise the stakes even further. The heavy opening guitar lines of the song kick in.
Up each side of the arena, everyone is standing, everyone moving. Some have their hands in the air, some dance, others are simply transfixed. Oasis themselves hardly move. There is a reason for this. Oasis aren’t natural dancers. They find it hard to express themselves physically.
Other performers get lost in their music and that feeling is dynamically transmitted to the audience through their vivid body movements. But not this band. They are well aware that they are loved for their forthright honesty. To move in a manner that even faintly whiffed of calculation would be to cripple the music.
Of course, what they found along the way was that the tension between their stasis and the huge music that erupts from themselves, actually adds to the audience’s fascination with them. It gives their shows a tension that is an elixir to the band. Noel had first witnessed this when he saw Public Enemy live.
For the audience Liam is the central focus of this tension. They know only too well about his impulsive nature, are aware of his unpredictable behaviour. They know also of the tempestuous nature of his and Noel’s relationship. Any communication between the brothers simply adds to the gig’s frisson.
For Oasis, this tense mood reminds them of different things, reminds them of that minute when you are standing on the terraces and the word has gone out and now you’re just waiting for the violence around you to kick off. You’re as scared as shit but high as a kite, as that weird mix of adrenalin laced with fear courses through your veins.
When they walk on-stage that’s precisely what Oasis are feeling.
On the third line of ‘Supersonic’ Liam muffles the line but quickly gains his composure. Noel hits stinging guitar riffs and Bonehead and Guigsy stare impassively ahead. Alan White, now drumming through a frenzy of sweat and facial contortions, can only see his cymbals.
The song finishes, Liam says something but the feedback that Noel is wrenching from his amp drowns him out. And then Noel hits the opening chords to ‘Hello’, and its back on again, no let up until the heights have been reached.
The band play it way too fast, but give a shit, this is live, this is excitement. ‘Hello,’ shout both brothers when it comes to the Gary Glitter chant that Noel so brazenly lifted, ‘It’s good to be back, good to be back.’
Noel’s guitar now has a funky rock edge to it as his foot effortlessly pumps the wah-wah pedal on the song’s finale.
The lights dim, Noel goes to his amp, fiddles with a few switches and then before you know it he is hitting the riff to ‘Some Might Say’. The riff has been nicked to fuck but NYNEX should care. The audience hurl themselves at the band now and hurl themselves against each other.
From its first line, the song instantly grabs people. It’s one of Noel’s irresistible songs, anthemic and charged with meaning. Because of that, Liam makes sure that the song’s best line is measured and audible: ‘Some might say they don’t believe in Heaven / Go and tell it to the man who lives in Hell.’
; Again, the brothers’ voices come together, trade off each other, move with each other. For many people, this is the best Oasis single ever, a fact strengthened by the rapturous applause and cheers and shouts that erupt on the song’s closing notes.
‘Cheers,’ Noel says, his first words of the gig. He sports a stripy jumper and his usual jeans and trainers. This band don’t look flash, even if their clothes have high price-tags.
The lighting they use is similarly unobtrusive. Compared to some, the lighting is minimal, simple. Noel, of course, had a hand in its design. The finished effect ensures the audience’s focus is kept on the music.
‘This is called “Roll With It”,’ Liam announces, ‘la la la.’ Again his hands clasp themselves behind his back and his head is bent upwards to the microphone. They play a thunderous version and as the crowd’s energy levels are once again lifted, the horn players now gather behind the stage.
Maggie, the tour manager, stands with them, her lighted torch dangling by her side. One of the trumpet players offers her his trumpet. She smiles, briefly and professionally.
As the band finish the song, the horn players troop up on to the riser. They stand above Oasis as Noel stands by his amp twiddling knobs, looking for all the world as if he is casually buying a packet of fags from a machine rather than standing on stage with 20,000 pairs of eyes on him and 20,000 voices cheering at him.
Liam gulps at a bottle of water, Guigsy and Whitey wipe themselves down with towels and Bonehead stares straight at the crowd, no reaction in his eyes.
Noel then looks up at the horn players, counts them in. ‘Round Are Way’ starts up, an intoxicating mix of blaring horns, ragged guitars and Alan White’s basic soul stomp. Again, it’s another contagious chorus that the crowd sing with abandonment and gusto, the song’s title, a specifically Northern expression, taking on even more meaning in this part of the world.
Towards the end of the song, Noel starts singing another one of his songs, ‘Up In The Sky’. He does this often, Noel. Throws in a couplet from another song as if to say, ‘See how easy this music lark is?’
In truth, it’s just another smokescreen. Noel knows more than most the price of it all.
‘Hey you up in the sky / Flying so high... ‘ Liam joins in, Noel steps away from his mike and the band end at precisely the same time.
Liam then says, ‘I’m trying to think of something to say to you...’ The crowd cheer. ‘I’ll just sing a song for you.’
Noel’s guitar then starts churning out that riff to ‘Cigarettes And Alcohol’. It is the sign for girls to start climbing on to their boys’ shoulders, for the whole of the NYNEX to sing in unison, the words to this quintessential 1990s song: ‘Is it my imagination / Or have I finally found something worth living for.’
The riff from this song came from the blues. Marc Bolan took it and wrote a song called ‘Get It On’ around it. But when he wasn’t looking, Noel Gallagher stole in and lifted it out of Bolan’s possession. Now whenever the people hear that riff they automatically think of ‘Cigarettes And Alcohol’.
The song is also one of the most sexual in Oasis’s arsenal.
The music, tough, menacing notes backed up by a primal beat, reeks of decadence and wild times. The lyrics, with their images of cocaine and of drunkenness, add to the fire. Yet there is a much wider meaning behind this song, a typical Gallagher message: seize the day, seize the moment.
In a country divided by wealth and opportunity, it’s the youth of the poor, the ones who live in the wastelands where the local shop is barricaded up and there is day after numbing day to kill, who know only too well that it’s not ‘worth the aggravation/ To find yourself a job when there’s nothing worth working for’. So you must be the architect of your own fame. It’s up to you. Make it happen. Oasis have. They’re the living proof.
Plus the song contains one great moment; this occurs on the second verse when Liam takes the word sunshine and transforms it into ‘Suun-shii-ine!’, in precisely the way Lennon did on The Beatles’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. But now the phrasing belongs to Liam Gallagher.
‘This is for a girl called Katy,’ Liam then announces, ‘”Live Forever”.’ He moves back from the mike and starts circling the stage. Round and round.
The band ready themselves to play one of Noel Gallagher’s finest moments, the song where everything dramatically comes together. In ‘Live Forever’ the words and the music are so intertwined, it often feels that they couldn’t exist without the other.
Other Oasis songs with non-specific lyrics, create a distance between band and audience, a space created by words. Catchy as they may be, lines such a ‘I’ve been driving in my car / With my friend Mr. Soft / Mr. Clean and Mr. Ben are living in my loft’ are throwaway words. They have none of the resonant power of ‘Live Forever’.
But when Liam steps to the mike and sings, ‘Maybe I will never be / All the things that I want to be / But now is not the time to cry / Now’s the time to find out why / I think you’re the same as me / We see things they’ll never see / You and I are gonna live forever’, then you are talking about music and words that transcend all the barriers and fully join together, as punk had intended, band and audience. Manchester is no exception. They soar, the song soars. No wonder Noel thinks it the first ‘proper’ song he wrote. It finishes in a scream of guitars, drums and bass.
Liam says something which causes Noel to throw his brother a withering look, and say, ‘No, it’s not, it’s “Champagne Supernova”.’
The crowd momentarily stop, a little confused. Is it going to go off? No, it’s not. The faithful who follow Oasis know the score when they see a disturbed sun light up behind Whitey’s kit.
Noel opens with the song’s delicate chords and the crowd turn to look at him, but he is deep into his playing, totally unreachable. Liam starts singing and the band join in. Of course, they play it too fast, but then they always do.
Live, they have little chance of repeating the subtleties this song achieves on record. Instead, they concentrate on finding its unstoppable momentum and turning that fully on to the audience. It is a majestic song, brilliantly arranged with different melodies and riffs piled upon each other and a set of lyrics that are ambiguous but good enough for everyone to read their own meaning into them.
In a decade where drugs are the norm and the authorities helpless to stop them, never has a crowd been more delighted than when they get to sing the ‘Where were you while we were getting high?’ refrain.
As the band head into the last third of the song and the crowd hold up their lighters, Noel now escapes into his playing. This is the nearest Oasis get to jazz, in that Noel now truly uses his guitar and not his pen to communicate with people. His guitar sounds angry, determined, focused yet utterly loose. Again, he brings forth that remarkable tension as you wonder where he’s going with these notes, how he is going to pull it off. It’s a tension further heightened by his on-stage demeanour, which is totally motionless. There is no emotion on his face. Nor any sweat. He is still, yet his music is wild, urgent.
Then he brings the mood down and Alan White kicks in the soft military beat that ends the song in such a wistful manner. Noel hits the last chord and turns away. The lights dim to thousands cheering, and the rest of the band take off their instruments and walk off.
You would be forgiven for thinking that the gig has ended. No way. Now we are into phase two, the place where Noel displays his other sides, other moods. He calmly goes over to the stool Jason has just placed on-stage and sits down.
Noel adjusts the mike and says, ‘This one’s for a mate of mine. His name is Johnny and this is “Wonderwall”.’ After the radio show, Noel had met up with Johnny Marr, the former guitarist with The Smiths who had truly inspired him.
Noel hits those distinctive chords and opens his mouth to sing. He needn’t have bothered. The whole of Manchester beats him to it.
‘Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back at you / By now you should have s
omehow / Realised what you gotta do / I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do / About you now.’ And everyone in the arena sings the last two lines to Noel and to Oasis. This is true community music, a binding together of people through words and sound that somehow mix to touch all the right nerves, tug all the right strings, inside of us all.
Years ago, across town, Noel heard a similar sound every time he went to Maine Road. He stood amongst the people as they sang together, united as one. Now, through his own music, he had repeated the magic.
In this part of the show, Noel is not the hard, cool rock star but the town healer. It’s here that his voice comes into its own. Strong, plaintive and soulful.
At the song’s conclusion, Noel says, ‘Thanks for sticking by us this year,’ and as they thank him back, he goes into ‘Cast No Shadow’, his elegy to songwriters.
Again, the crowd take the burden off him, and buoyed by their reaction, he changes the final wording to ‘They can take our souls/ But they can’t take our pride’.
The lights extinguish and when they come up again Noel says, ‘This is a song about being young and having it large every night, the way you do. This is “Morning Glory”.’
Played slower on acoustic, and bereft now of its almost thrashlike treatment on record, the song takes on greater depths of meaning.
Noel always wrings more meaning from his songs when he plays them acoustically, his sad-tinged voice throwing a different light on lines such as ’All your dreams are made / When they’re chained to the mirror and the razor blade’. On record those words sound like a celebration. Here, they sound like a lament.
The song ends, the lights dim and Noel Gallagher, with only his guitar by his side, becomes a silhouette, briefly trapped in his own isolation. The lights rise and the band, minus Liam, walk back on as Jason takes away the stool and Noel pulls on his electric guitar.
‘Anyone here called Sally?’ Noel asks. There’s a shout from the front row. Noel peers over at the people. ‘You’re not Sally, you’re a geezer.’
