Today tickets go on sale for a reunion tour most people thought could never happen. The warring Gallagher brothers have put aside their differences and agreed to a 14-date Oasis tour in 2025. For 16 years, they were one the biggest bands on the planet, but Liam and Noel’s constant feuding and fighting ultimately caused their demise. Jonathan Mayo charts the highs and lows of Oasis’s supersonic career.
August 18, 1991
At the Boardwalk club in Manchester a young four-piece band called Oasis are playing their very first gig. Liam Gallagher, the 19-year-old lead singer, named them after the Oasis Leisure Centre in Swindon after seeing the venue on a tour poster. At school he was hit on the head with a hammer by another boy. ‘From that day on, I know it sounds stupid, it was like something clicked, I started hearing music – it started making sense.’ In the audience at the Boardwalk is Liam’s older brother Noel, 24, who as a teenager was a petty thief with a love of glue-sniffing and marijuana.
He developed a stammer because of the regular beatings he received from their father Thomas. Noel has discovered that songwriting is a way to escape.
September
Noel agrees to join Oasis after playing them a selection of his songs, some written in a storeroom while working for a subsidiary of British Gas. Guitarist Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs said, ‘he had loads of stuff written.
Noel and Liam perform onstage in Earls Court in 2001
‘When he walked in, we were a band making a racket with four tunes. All of a sudden, there were loads of ideas.’ Noel is ambitious and lays down the law saying that no-one must miss rehearsals, and they must limit their drink and drug intake.
But the greatest threat to band harmony are the Gallagher brothers whose fierce rivalry can sometimes lead to brawls. Noel summed up his relationship with Liam to music journalist Paolo Hewitt as, ‘a classic case of hating the one you love. He wishes he was me ’cos I can write the songs, and I wish I was as brassy and cocky as him, and I’m not.’
May 31, 1993
Oasis are playing King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut club in Glasgow when Alan McGee – the head of Creation Records – walks in, hoping to run into an ex-girlfriend. Although their whole set lasts just 15 minutes they grab McGee’s attention. He recalled: ‘I was standing there with my kid sister Susan and she immediately went, “You should sign them.” I said, “Let’s hear the second song”, and it was: “I am signing them.” By the third song: “I’m definitely signing them.”’
Peggie Gallagher remembered what Liam said the day her son told her about the record deal, ‘All I want mum is to earn a bit of money and buy myself some new clothes.’
December 19
Noel has written a song called Supersonic in just 30 minutes and Oasis are in a studio in Liverpool to record it. During the recording Elsa the engineer’s Rottweiler licks up some cocaine that had inadvertently spilled on the floor and is out of it for the next few days, inspiring Noel’s lyric, ‘I know a girl called Elsa/She’s into alka seltzer.’ Supersonic becomes their first single. Oasis are getting positive reviews in the music press and playing gigs all over the country, some of which are better attended than others.
In a pub in Leeds their audience only consisted of a young couple who halfway through had an argument and left, leaving Oasis to play to the barmaid.
Actress Patsy Kensit marries Liam in 1997 and two years later have a son called Lennon
February 8, 1994
Oasis are on a ferry on their way to Amsterdam for their first European gig when some football fans start fighting and Liam joins in. Oasis producer Mark Coyle recalled, ‘You could see him running through the windows along the deck. He’s having a great time. It looks like he’s in a school playground chasing leaves.
The next time I see Liam he’s got policemen running after him.’ All the band except Noel are arrested, have their passports confiscated and never make it to Holland. When Noel phones up Creation Records boss Alan McGee to break the news, he just replies, ‘Brilliant!’ Liam has always been a rebel’. His primary school teacher told his mother Peggy that after a day in the classroom with six-year old Liam she needed Valium to calm down.
April 7
At the Forte Crest Hotel in Glasgow, Liam and Noel sit down with music journalist John Harris for their first major interview. Both brothers are drunk and Noel is still angry about the fight on the ferry. Harris asks if their mutual dislike fires up the band and Liam agrees, ‘That’s why we’ll be the best band in the world because I f*****g hate that t**t there.’
Noel replies, ‘The same goes for you.’ Liam says, ‘I hope one day there’s a release where I can smash the f**k out of him with a Rickenbacker (guitar), right on his nose, and then he does the same to me.’ Harris asks how often they have arguments like this, and Noel replies, ‘hourly.’ A year later, a recording of the interview reaches number 52 in the charts.
2nd June
The Oasis tour has reached Wales and Noel is being interviewed by Lisa Verrico of Vox magazine in a Cardiff hotel.
As he downplays the band’s reputation for bad behaviour, a table thrown from the floor above by guitarist Bonehead flies past the window. (Bonehead’s attitude to hotels is, ‘if it moves, fling it.’)
29th August
Oasis release their debut album ‘Definitely Maybe’ and it goes straight to number 1 – the fastest selling debut ever and sells over 8 million copies worldwide.
The cover photo was taken in Bonehead’s house and shows the band surrounded by objects important to them, including a poster of songwriter Burt Bacharach and pictures of footballers George Best and Rodney Marsh.
Photographer Spencer Jones asked Liam to lie on the floor to cover up the wooden floorboards so the album ‘wouldn’t look like an advert for varnish’.
29th September
The band are playing the legendary Whisky a Go-Go club in LA at the start of their first full US tour and the starstruck band spot Ringo Starr in the crowd. But they are all wired from drugs that drummer Tony McCarroll described (in his book Oasis: The Truth) as being ‘simply too strong for the band as a unit.
Not the normal washing powder-diluted narcotic we would ride on back home.’ Liam forgets the lyrics to songs, Noel is out of tune and bass guitarist Paul McGuigan’s amp blows up.
Liam then mocks the audience, hits his brother over the head with a tambourine and walks off stage before the end of the set. A furious Noel quits the band the next day and flies to San Francisco, but the record company eventually persuade him to return and the tour finally resumes.
18 April 1995
At a soundcheck in Paris, Noel is playing around with words for a new song that will become Don’t Look Back in Anger, one of their biggest hits. Noel recalled, ‘I was strumming away on the acoustic guitar, and our kid (Liam) said, “What’s that you’re singin?” I wasn’t singing anyway, I was just making it up.
And our kid said, “Are you singing, ‘So Sally can wait’?” And I was like – that’s genius! So I started singing, “So Sally can wait.” I remember going back to the dressing room and writing it out. If I’d have known that night what I know now about people playing it at f*****g funerals and weddings, I’d never have finished the song. Too much pressure.’
15th May
Oasis are at Rockfield Studios in Wales recording their second album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? Liam invites a group of fans he’s met at a nearby pub back to the studio but a furious Noel insists they leave.
Liam said, ‘I shouldn’t have brought them back, but I thought we were a rock and roll band. I thought anything goes in Oasis.’ Journalist Paolo Hewitt watches the drama unfold and recalled in his book Getting High, ‘That night Liam lost control and lashed out at everyone and everything around him. Among other things, he headed for the studio, determined to smash up Noel’s guitars.’ Noel picks up a cricket bat and hits Liam around the head with it. The brothers eventually make up and years later Paolo Hewitt sells the cricket bat at auction.
August 14
Blur and Oasis release singles on the same day – setting up the so-called ‘Battle of the Bands.’ Although hyped by the press, the animosity is real. Blur’s lead singer Damon Albarn later described the Mancunians as being like ‘the bullies I had to put up with at school.’
To Noel’s annoyance Blur’s Country House outsells Oasis’s Roll With It and he says in an interview that he hopes that Blur ‘catch AIDS and die.’
He later apologises profusely and donates money to the Terence Higgins Trust.
Noel with head of Creation Records Alan McGee, who discovered the band in 1993
September 6
Liam is in the back of a stretch-limo travelling through the streets of Paris with a member of the record company and Oasis’s road manager Iain Robertson.
The singer is angry because during a radio interview he felt upstaged by a French-speaking Eddie Izzard, and suddenly jumps out of the car. Robertson catches up with Liam and grabs him, but he thumps Robertson in the head yelling, ‘That’s it, you’re sacked –that’s the end for you!’
In his memoir Oasis: What’s the Story? Robertson recounts how over the previous two years he’d talked Liam down off the roof of a fast-moving tour bus; persuaded him to leave a girl in his bed to film a music video (‘Yeah, she’s lovely but she wouldn’t be there if you were a greengrocer, Liam. So let’s get to work…’); and forced him on a bus to Middlesbrough instead of going on a date with presenter Paula Yates.
After every argument there had always been an apology, but not today. Iain is sacked.
October 2
The album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? is released and goes to No 1 in seven countries, becoming one of the bestselling UK albums of all time. Some critics complain Noel copies bands like the Beatles but he retorts ‘I never said I was inventing anything. I’m a lover of music.’
There is speculation that Noel’s lyrics spring from his relationship with his father, but he told journalist Daniel Rachel ‘the abusive father I had belongs to me. I really wouldn’t want to share that or put it in a song. Why waste that three minutes when you could write about the sun coming up in the morning?’
August 10-11, 1996
This weekend Oasis are playing to 250,000 fans over two nights at Knebworth – the largest outdoor UK concerts at the time. Over 4 per cent of the population have applied for tickets. Before the first gig Noel takes a bath in Knebworth House where he is brought a bottle of champagne by a man he assumes is a butler, but is in fact the owner, Lord Cobbold.
After the last concert Liam drives his girlfriend, actress Patsy Kensit, around the deserted grounds in a golf buggy and tells her: ‘I want you by my side all the time. I don’t want you taking your clothes off in any more s**t movies. I want to take care of you.’
They marry in 1997 and two years later have a son called Lennon; Elizabeth Hurley is his godmother. Patsy turns down the part of Ross’s girlfriend in the US comedy Friends. She said later: ‘I knew I needed to be at home if my relationship with Liam was going to survive.’
August 23
The success of Knebworth is soon forgotten. The band are due to record a prestigious acoustic MTV Unplugged show at the Royal Festival Hall, but during rehearsals Liam rarely sings, claiming he has a sore throat.
When it comes to the audience recording, he is nowhere to be seen. Noel apologises to the fans that they are stuck with ‘the ugly four‘, but then a few songs in, Liam arrives and sits in a balcony smoking and drinking and heckling his brother.
Despite the distraction, Noel’s lead vocals are well-received by the audience.
One of the MTV production team said, ‘There was almost this kind of feeling that Noel was enjoying that moment too. Where he had this opportunity to sing his own lyrics.’
Four days later Oasis leave for a tour of America but as the plane is about to depart Liam disembarks and heads home, so once again Noel takes over lead vocals until his brother joins them three days later. The New York Times calls Oasis ‘Britain’s most popular act since the Beatles.’
Noel marries Meg Matthews in 1997
July 30, 1997
The recently elected Prime Minister Tony Blair has invited several celebrities to what becomes known as the ‘Cool Britannia’ reception at Downing Street, including Noel and his wife Meg Mathews, Alan McGee and his partner Kate.
Noel had reservations about going but his mum said it would be a ‘great honour’ for one of her sons to go to No 10. In the morning, Press Secretary Alistair Campbell phones Alan to ask if they are going to behave, and he reassures him that they will.
During the reception, Downing Street staff follow Noel everywhere, even to the toilets, concerned he will take drugs. Noel has a brief conversation with Blair and tells him that he stayed up until 7am on election night and asks the PM how he managed to stay awake. Blair leans over and says: ‘Probably not by the same means you did!’
August 21, 1997
The band’s third album Be Here Now is released. Most of the songs were written by Noel while they were on holiday with Mick Jagger, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp.
Noel is finding it harder to come up with material. He said: ‘Your records become eagerly anticipated and then you start going “umm… I might just go to the pub today.”’
The album is a huge success, although Noel immediately has doubts about the quality of the songs, saying: ‘I know how much effort I put into it. It wasn’t that much.’ The band keep a low profile for a couple of years.
May 20, 2000
Oasis are on a massive tour that will mean that this year they will play to over a million people across 23 countries. By now, only Liam and Noel survive from band’s original line up. Tonight’s gig in Barcelona has been cancelled as drummer Alan White has hurt his arm so they are all in a hotel drinking.
Liam picks a fight with Noel, questioning the legitimacy of Anaïs, Noel’s daughter with his wife Meg. Noel attacks his brother, splits his lip and once again leaves the band, eventually returning for the British leg of the tour.
Pictured: Peggy Gallagher with her sons Paul, Noel (left) and Liam (right) before she left their father Thomas in 1984
December 1, 2002
Patsy Kensit and Liam have divorced and he is now in a relationship with All Saints singer Nicole Appleton, who is believed to have made the singer more mellow. However, at the five-star Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich a drunken fight breaks out between Liam, Alan White and three members of their entourage.
Armed police are called to break up the brawl and as one officer attempts to make an arrest, Liam kicks him in the chest, ‘with all his force,‘ the police said.
They are all arrested, the Munich concert is cancelled and a Hamburg gig postponed as Liam has lost two teeth and needs emergency dental work.
July 2004
Oasis are headlining the Glastonbury festival, but the gig is a disaster. A few days earlier drummer Alan White quit saying that, ‘the spirit of being in a band was kicked out of him.’
Ringo Starr’s son Zac Starkey has taken his place but he doesn’t know the songs very well and Liam’s singing is lacklustre. He later blamed his in-ear monitors, saying ‘I hated that gig, man.’ The music press is now no longer in love with the band – the NME calls Oasis ‘a glorious pantomime of noise and nostalgia.’ Nevertheless the band still have a large enough following to regularly get Top 5 singles and albums.
March 2009
The group are no longer the creative force they once were and struggled to agree on the artistic direction of their 2008 album Dig Your Soul. Noel said about Liam in the documentary Supersonic: ‘There was a period where he was the greatest singer in the world, added to that the greatest front man; they were the magic years. The trick is keeping that s**t going.’
In 2002 Liam begins his relationship with All Saints singer Nicole Appleton, who is believed to have made the singer more mellow
The animosity between the brothers has reached a new low and Noel tells Q magazine: ‘I don’t like Liam,’ who then responds through the pages of the NME ‘It takes more than blood to be my brother. He doesn’t like me, and I don’t like him.’
August 2009
Backstage at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris, Noel and Liam argue whether Liam’s Pretty Green fashion label can advertise in a tour programme. Liam attacks him with a guitar and Noel decides to quit – this time for good.
He releases a statement: ‘It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.’
After 18 productive but chaotic years and selling over 70 million albums, Oasis are no more.
Aftermath
For 15 years Noel and Liam continued to exchange insults and in 2011 Liam sued Noel for saying that an Oasis gig had been cancelled because he had a hangover.
Noel apologised and the case was dropped. Then this week came the surprise announcement of the Oasis reunion tour and a statement from the band that declared: ‘The guns have fallen silent.’ But after decades of fighting – can the truce last?
