I saw Oasis play four times in the 2000s, at Old Wembley, in Paris, at Old Trafford, and at New Wembley.
This was a decade that took the band from the lowest point in their history, through a period of gradual rehabilitation, and finally through to their sudden, expected end.
There was a never a dull moment when I saw them play. Now it’s time to revisit those gigs in all their messy (morning) glory.
How many times can one man hear ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’ before he begins to wonder if its worth the aggravation? Let’s find out.
Part one is given over entirely to a performance so disreputable that it’s earned a solo spot.
Wembley, London – 22 July 2000
This was the first Oasis gig I ever attended, and easily the most famous of the bunch.
It was the second of two nights at Wembley, billed as the band’s biggest gigs since Knebworth in 1996. And, as Andy Capper later wrote for NME, it was certainly ‘one of the most remarkable rock ‘n’ roll concerts ever to grace Wembley Stadium’. But for all the wrong reasons.
From his short, unplanned cameo we could tell that Our Kid was already well oiled
A concert that was supposed to form the basis of a planned live album – and was telecast to an audience of 70 million people – was comprehensively sabotaged by lead singer Liam Gallagher.
It first became clear that revolution was in the air at around 7.45pm, when Liam gatecrashed the evening’s support act, the Happy Mondays. He ambushed Shaun Ryder with a well-aimed bear hug. From this short, unplanned cameo everyone in the audience recognised that ‘Our Kid’ was already quite well-oiled.
When the main event finally arrived, Liam was antagonistic from the get-go. He was determined to compromise every aspect of the set by changing or omitting lyrics and relentlessly baiting his brother, Noel.
Liam barely stopped chattering throughout the set. Much of what he said was unintelligible, although a significant portion of it seemed to focus on the state of his lodgings following his recent split with then-wife Patsy Kensit.
If you want to take a deep dive into everything that went wrong, a detailed autopsy is available.
John Lennon famously lauded Phil Spector’s production of Let it Be on the basis that “he was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit, with a lousy feeling toward it, ever. And he made something out of it.”
You could certainly apply that same verdict to the work done by Mark Stent and Paul Stacey in assembling the live double album Familiar to Millions. It leaned heavily on the first night’s safety recording and performances from earlier in the tour.
So, the first-hand verdict on Oasis at Wembley: a mortifying letdown?
Well, not quite.
Break-up music
For a start, the music didn’t seem all that bad at the time.
Put another way, the audience wasn’t that discerning. It was difficult to disagree with Liam’s later assessment that he “was only half as pissed as half the people in the crowd”.
More than that, the relentless on-stage drama was strangely thrilling. Tensions were so high that it really did seem possible that the band’s inevitable break up might take place that very night. At least we could say we were there to see it.
The historical record seems to back this up:
The onstage tension between [Liam] and Noel, which frequently seemed set to come to blows, actually added to the sense of occasion. The 70,000 fans were delighted to see the band back at their fighting best, even if this time it looked more serious than the playfulness of the past.
NME, 23 June 2000
Perhaps the most unnerving breach of band protocol came at the conclusion of the gig. Liam refused to leave the stage, even after the encore had concluded.
For a while we just watched, mesmerised, as he prowled around the stage and messed with Noel’s guitar, before issuing a challenge to the crowd: “I’ll go if you go. You go first.”
Of course eventually Liam did go back to his empty home.
The rest of us drifted out into the night, stunned and confused by what we’d just witnessed, tapping out texts on our Nokia phones: WHERE WERE U WHILE WE WERE GETTING HIGH?
Next time: The French Connection, piss in a bottle and the Last Hurrah
