12 age special

MATT HEALYGOES LOOKING FOR GOD... AND FINDS HIMSELF

ALL THEMUSIC YOUNEED THIS MONTH

THE INTERVIEW

PAGES OF REVIEWS

JOHN LYDONHIS RULES FOR LIFE!

A BAND TO BLOW YOUR MIND!

1996 revisited

PRIMALSCREAM

GRIMESHER PUNK-ART RIOT

CHVRCHES48-HOUR TOKYO TRIUMPH

THE STONESKEITH: ‘I BURNT DOWN THE

PLAYBOY MANSION!’

THEIR

FULL

STORY

“I am the cosmos”: Noel Gallagher welcomes the multitudes to Oasis’s triumphant homecoming, Maine Road, Manchester, 28 April, 1996.

Twenty years ago, OASIS sold out twonights at Maine Road, then home totheir beloved Manchester City. At thetime, bands didn’t sell out footballstadiums but the Gallagher brotherswere busy changing everybody’sexpectations. Over the next 12 pages,Q revisits their power and glory...

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hugely-bankrolled modern incarnation, werethen an apparently cursed club, about to berelegated to Division One – had always beena constant. And with (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? confirmed as a phenomenonas much as a long-playing record and Americaapparently conquered, the time was right forsomething that would symbolise the fact thatOasis had now left everybody else standing.Ergo, a pair of shows, on 27 and 28 April, 1996(a Saturday and Sunday), which were two things at once: Oasis’s first stadium gigs, and a spectacular Mancunian homecoming.

It was a funny time of year to choose, notleast on account of the North West’s famouslyinclement weather. But the timing was perfect– not just because of the dizzying upward curve they were gliding along, but the ongoingquality of the music they were putting out,on single after single. In October 1995, Wonderwall’s supporting features had included not just Round Are Way, but a jaw-dropping ballad titled The Masterplan.Three months later, Don’t Look Back In Angerwas packaged up with an eye-wateringly greatcover of Slade’s 1973 smash Cum On The FeelThe Noize. All three of these songs sat at the core of Maine Road’s delights: the latter,in fact, was the deliriously-received show-stopper on both nights (watched by its co-author Noddy Holder, who couldprobably not believe what he was seeing).

What else stuck out? I went on the Sunday,and I vividly recall Noel coming onstage anddoing a series of “We are not worthy” bows to the adoring crowd, andthen reaching for the Union Jack guitar that had made its public debuta few months before on Top Of The Pops. The version of Acquiesce –once the instrumental The Swamp Song was out of the way, the realopener – was so full of verve and confidence that on the pitch, thepeople at the back jumped up and down as frantically as those mereinches from the barrier in front of the stage. And, as darkness fell at around nine o’clock, I remember the lovely view from Level 6 of the

he Gallagher brothers always had acomplicated relationship with thecity that spawned them. “Ourhome town, for the last two years, has not wanted to know,” Noel told me in April 1994. “We were going round Manchester saying, ‘We’re the greatest, come andsee us.’” He then feigned a bored drawl, in imitation of Mancunian

indifference. “‘Nah – you’re shit.’ And now we’ve got this review or that review, it’s like, ‘You’re our lads! You’re our lads from Manchester! Come and play for us!’ And it’s like, ‘Fuck off, you knobhead.’ I’m sorry – the first gig we sold out was in London. We’re not regionalists. We’re not

ambassadors for Manchester.”On one level, this was sensible PR, apart

from anything else. Manchester had recently fallen from its fashionable perch as Happy Mondays had come to grief and The Stone Roses had disappeared, so to arrive in the

public domain singing, “Manchester, la la la” would not have been the cleverest move. But there were also deeper factors at work – not least, the city’s early-’90s reputation for gangland nastiness. In late 1995, Noel explained his decision to leave the city in simple enough terms: “I was sick and tired of young crackheads coming up to me in clubs, sticking a screwdriver in my back, and saying, ‘We’re doing the merchandising on your next tour.’”

In that sense, it was probably telling that in April 1995, Oasis’s first arena gig had taken place just across the Pennines, in Sheffield. But by the following year, the Gallaghers’ love/hate view of their birthplace was starting to tilt in a more positive direction, as perhaps evidenced by a new song called Round Are Way, released at the end of October 1995. Now, it sounds as close to a fond remembrance of Manchester as Noel has ever written, full of lovely detail, an appealing sense of mischief, and a palpable sense of place – dole cheques flopping through letterboxes, school forever skived, and the inevitable references to the Beautiful Game, or the Burnage version of it: “It’s 25-a-side and before it’s dark/There’s gonna be a loser/ And you know the next goal wins.”

His and Liam’s love of Manchester City – who, far from their

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Small faces: Oasis’s dressing room IDs for the gigs, which saw the likes of David Beckham, Angus Deayton and the Brookside cast in attendance.

Despite being a religious experience for all present, it may not have been the glorious homecoming for the band that many imagined writes John Harris, who witnessed the event from the very-expensive seats.

OASIS AT MAINE ROAD: 20TH ANNIVERSARY

(Above, from left) Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan, Noel Gallagher, Liam Gallagher, Alan White and Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs; (below)coaches carrying just some of the 40,000 fans arrive at Maine Road; (left) tickets for the gig, which were going for £300 from touts.

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OASIS AT MAINE ROAD: 20TH ANNIVERSARY

KippaxStreet stand, of the South sideof the city and thehills beyond,with theband and40,000 fans in the foreground: not, it has tobe said,the kindof sceneone tended to associatewithBritish groupsonindependent labels. Itwas some tokenof themagic atwork thatevenRollWith It soundedgood.

The support actswereOceanColour Scene andManic StreetPreachers,whohad just releasedADesignForLife. The guest listhad apronouncedNorthernbias, and suggests in retrospect that thesupermodels and jetsetterswhoarrived enmassewhenOasis playedKnebworthwere yet to get interested. A lot of footballerswere inattendance, fromManchesterUnited asmuchas their underachievingrivals (witness thepresenceofDavidBeckhamandRyanGiggs).Mostof the younger cast ofChannel 4’s Brookside turnedup.The snookergeniusAlex “Hurricane”Higginswas there, clad in abaseball cap. Sotoowere an assortment of other notables, fromJohnSquire toAngus

Round our way: (above) Liam and Noel play their biggest gig to date, 27 April, 1996; (below) the bill for the two concerts, with Ocean Colour Scene and Manic Street Preachers in support.

“Someone had threatened to kidnap Liam. The security was really tight at the Maine Road gig.” Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs

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years later, Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs would tell me that the nefariousgrimness that had pushed Noel away from his home turf was stillthere, festering in the middle distance. “Someone had threatened tokidnap Liam. And knowing the mentality of some of the gangsters inManchester… I could imagine it,” he said. “The security was really,really tight at that gig. People were controlling corridors, constantly.”According to a subsequent report in the Daily Mirror, on the firstnight, Liam dramatically dedicated Supersonic to “the kidnapperswho say they’re going to hold me for ransom.” Unfortunately, thefootage proves he did nothing of the kind.

One hesitates to make light of such stories – but in any case, youneed only watch the footage of Maine Road and imagine the unlikelyspectacle of the younger Gallagher being snatched to come to theinevitable conclusion: that if any hoods had somehow got him,he would have blasted his way out of captivity within seconds.

“Have I Got News For You” Deayton, though I didn’t see him. All of us made merry in some style: speaking for myself, after four years spent watching guitar groups in less-than-luxurious surroundings, I am not sure I had ever been to a gig before at which I had a ticket for a VIP area, let alone one with drinks tokens and a buffet.

On the Saturday night, Liam said a few enlightening words to the writer Keith Cameron. “I haven’t had the chance to really appreciate any of this – it’s just been non-stop. We did Earls Court, then the next day, we were in Germany playing to 300 people. I thought, ‘What the fuck’s all this about?’ Today was something else, just cos it was the place I used to come every Saturday, watch big Joe Corrigan [imposing City goalkeeper, at the club between 1967 and 1983] and the rest of it, and now it’s us. It’s like yes, thank you.”

If that sounded like the stuff of triumph and wonderment, there were also darker vibes swirling around, though few of us knew. Five

“At the end, there was kids on the roof, helicopters over the gig. It was like Vietnam. Proper mega.” Noel Gallagher

“We’re not ambassadors for Manchester”: an initially ambivalent Noel gets in the right mood, Maine Road, 28 April, 1996.

OASIS AT MAINE ROAD: 20TH ANNIVERSARY

gigantic, silvery, glitteringhalfmoon roseoverMaineRoad that night, amoonmade evenmore glittering, surely, byan increasingly evident inkling:was everyonehere ondrugs?

“Would you like to seemydrugs setlist?” So a22-year-old calledMikehadchirped that afternoon, herewithhis

fivemates, calling themselves “TheEustonPosse”. Froma jeanspocketheunfolded apieceof paper, featuringmeticulous vertical columnsnumbering thenarcotic bounty

ahead, columns titledBAG,PILLS,WEED.Generously, heprofferedhis ready-rolled spliff – “prison fag anyone?” –whilecontemplating thedominantmoodof this era-defining event.“It’s just like a big holiday, a festival,” hebeamed. “They’re justthat brilliant that they’ve takenover theworld, simple as that.”

Euphoria. Laughing. Friendship. Freedom.LiveForever.Thosewere the tangible elements crackling through the

They’vetaken over theworld.”Sylvia Patterson spent the show moving among the crowd, interviewing those in the throng about their high times at Maine Road. But it was her interviews with the brothers Gallagher in later years that cast enlightening perspective upon the event.

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“Sorry, son, your name’snot on the list”: Noel greetsone of Oasis’s younger fansbefore the gig, Maine Road.

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atmosphere inside the Man City FC mothership. Six months after (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? was released, two months after Don’t Look Back In Anger went to Number 1 in the UK, the 40,000-capacity stadium was a gigantic Oasis theme-park sparkling in the dazzling springtime sun-shee-iiine. Oasis were now, as Liam Gallagher would surmise in the future, “the best soap on TV”, the biggest band in Britain defined by rock’n’roll’s glorious chaos, the Gallagher brothers’ argy-bargy now at cartoon levels in the newly pop culture-trawling tabloid newspapers.

Lads like Mike were everywhere, seemingly impersonating Bonehead (checked shirt, cropped hair, loose jeans) though actual kids were also everywhere: seven-year-olds with their Oasis T-shirted mums or perched on 30-year-old dads’ bouncing shoulders. The merchandise bootleggers were also everywhere, selling posters, badges, tour guides and stickers, while tickets from touts at 2.12pm were selling for £300. One enterprising 11-year-old (!) called Simon was selling stickers for “one pound! Er… 50p then?”

As the crowds crammed in, communal singing spontaneously erupted as star-shaped tambourines shimmied overhead. “Worra life it would beeee…” came roaring across the pitch as Digsy’s Dinner

flared up, “…these could be the best days of our liiiiiiives!”Simultaneously, wags blared a “homage” to Blur’s Country House:“Lives in an arse! Very big arse! In the countreeee!”

By evening, the 60-strong St John’s Ambulance team were edgy. “Of course I’m worried,” baulked one. “Have you seen the state of some them!?”

No wonder everyone was on drugs: queues for pints at the stadium bars were 16 people deep while the “food” on offer was several generations away from the organic boar’n’kale burger of our boho festival future, a selection of crisps, chocolate, chips, pasties and sausage rolls beamed from the 1970s. The atmosphere, nonetheless, was spectacularly genial, with two shaven-headed Mancunian hardmen seen giving a homeless man panhandling outside an entrance one of their cans of Carlsberg Special Brew.

“Here you go, mate, have one on us,” they said, and then handed over another, to his already unsteady one-legged pal.

“I’ve never seen Oasis,” said a wobbling Christie from Liverpool, “and this is just the best thing I’ve ever been to, the atmosphere’s incredible, all these people in a right state crash into you and they’ve just got massive smiles on their faces and just go, ‘Sorry, like!’

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Where were you while we were getting high? An allegedly refreshed crowd arrive at Manchester City’s ground for the festivities, 27 April, 1996.

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Brilliant! I went to Spike Island and this is miles better already. And Liam can sing.”

As the band strolled on to a roar you could surely hear on the halfmoon beaming overhead, the Oasis theme park seemed to literallylevitate at the oncoming surge of colossal communal song – “becausewe neeeed each other! We belieeeeve in one another!” By the show’send, four lads dangled off the mile-high roof (approx height) of theNorth Stand and thus causing the night’s lone security incident.

Streaming out with the crowd afterwards, a consensus emerged:“brilliant”, “the best thing I’ve ever been to in my life”, “better thansex”. A bloke on his mate’s shoulders with his £3 Oasis poster unfurling into his now-blind mate’s face, botched his attempt ata solo I Am The Walrus: “Coo-choo-coo-too!”

Me, I’d gone all “spiritual” with emotional thoughts bubbling up onmusic’s almighty power to connect, on how we truly live forever insideeach other’s souls. “Spiritual?” scoffed a lad called Jamie. “Bollocks!It’s about real life, that lot are real kids from the street, singing andtalking about reality!” “And Noel wrote Live Forever,” added his chumHelen, “about his mum!” There was one lone voice of dissent. “Very

good but disappointing,”announced a check-shirtedlad called Steve. “Theydidn’t play Slide Away, thebest thing they’ve ever done.Champagne Supernova wasfar too fast and an hour andhalf ’s not long enough. MaineRoad, their own town, Ithought they’d do somethingspecial, but that was whatthey do every night anywhere,knowhatImean?” “He’s anOasis virgin, he knows nothing!” interjected hismate Pete, “I’ve been toseven Oasis gigs now and that was a classic!”

Five years later in 2001,Noel Gallagher sat in a photographic studio inNorth London creating his

own captions for a photo celebration of Oasis’s greatest moments. Heselected the famed black-and-white Maine Road image where we seehim from behind, standing mid-stage having just walked on, arms outat either side like Christ The Redeemer on the mountain peak in Rio,surveying the ecstatic crowd. His caption: “I AM THE COSMOS.”

“Great picture,” he smiled. “That’s what it felt like. The cosmos! Atthat point, it’s better than the gig, cos you haven’t played a note. If youlook, everyone’s got their fucking arms in the air and that’s a propercelebration. At the end of that gig there was kids on the roof, helicoptersover the gig, it was like fucking Vietnam, it was mega, proper mega.”

Six years on from then, in 2007, Liam Gallagher also looked backat Maine Road, remembering the unexpected place he found himselfthat night, aged 23, long after the show: back in his childhood bedroom in Burnage which still housed his and Noel’s single beds. “I was still living at me mam’s house that day,” he told me in 2007. “I come back home, sitting on me bed, that same bed. ‘Fucking hell,just played that gig, that was insane, man.’”

This real kid from the street, singing about reality, was alreadyredefining what his version of reality could be.

“And the next day [after the shows] I moved down to London,” Liamcarried on. “Moved in with Patsy [Kensit]. Moved out of me mam’shouse into a fucking million-pound house in St John’s Wood. And Ihaven’t been back since, y’knowhatImean? Why would you go backthere, man? Reality, man, fuck that!”

Oasis, after all, were always about escape.

“The next day, I moved down to London. And I haven’t been back since.” Liam Gallagher

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And it’s good night from them: Noel and Liam playing the second of their two gigs, Manchester, 28 April, 1996.