The concerts that Noel Gallagher thought defined Oasis: ‘That’s what we were at the time’
Anyone who has heard of Oasis knows they’ve done the most damage onstage. Although people like to drone on about how the sonic aspects of What’s the Story Morning Glory sound fantastic, the only thing that Owen Morris did was simulate how the group sounded whenever they played live in concert, with every instrument being pushed as far as it could go before compression. For all of the animosity in those days, Noel Gallagher never took a show for granted, and when the group played Maine Road for the first time, he knew that they had reached their apex.
Then again, the Britpop legends’ iconic shows at Knebworth will be remembered forever. It’s not like the masses are wrong, either, considering that most of the concert is them doing their victory lap after two years in the limelight and fast becoming one of the most in-demand rock acts since The Beatles.
Considering where they started, though, it’s insane to think that they covered so much ground in just a few years. Listening back to Definitely Maybe, Noel captured the zeitgeist better than anyone else ever could, being the one outlier promoting positivity in an age when most rockstars just wanted to drone on about how sad they were all the time.
In an era of pessimism, Noel was looking to live forever, and his way of flirting with immortality centred around putting everything into the songs. Whether it was ‘Wonderwall’ or ‘Champagne Supernova’, people were reacting to his music as if he had ripped something out of his soul for the world to see, which only got better when they played live.
Because if Liam’s voice sounded good on record, his snide swagger upgraded tenfold whenever fans saw him in the flesh. Even though there was a lot more attitude behind what they were doing, the sentimental side wasn’t lost on them, and Maine Road was a homecoming gig for the ages.
For Noel, the group was still a popular indie band, and now they were facing the kind of shows that most musicians only dream of. It wasn’t going to be easy, but once they stepped out onto that stage, fans got to hear the group at their absolute peak.
Despite not being that familiar with stadium gigs, Noel thought that those shows were the definitive Oasis gigs, telling Gibson, “We always signed on about a year before we were walking out into football stadiums that I’d grown up in. They were really great gigs. The Knebworth one was the biggest, but those Maine Road shows, that’s it. That’s what Oasis was at that time. I had seen Pink Floyd playing there, and I’d seen Guns N’ Roses, and now I was playing there. It was a bit mad.”
But that’s what happens when someone touches people’s souls in that short amount of time. No one is necessarily when they’re told that they’re going to be one of the biggest acts in the world, but once Noel found out he could go toe-to-toe with the Led Zeppelins of the world, he rode that wave for as long as it would take him.
