The “eerie” moment Jason Schwartzman saw Noel Gallagher
The Oasis reunion tour announcement has led many fans, including Jason Schwartzman, to reminisce about the Britpop years. The actor recently recalled a chance encounter with songwriter Noel Gallagher in the mid-2000s.
Born in 1980, Schwartzman was the perfect age to be taken in by Britpop hype when it arrived in the mid-1990s. By the dawn of the 2000s, when he took a trip to London, the Britpop phenomenon had come to a natural end, but Schwartzman was still obsessed.
“I was in England in 2004, 2005, in this cab, asking all these Britpop questions to the driver,” he recalled during a recent conversation with The Guardian, “I’m such a Britpop geek; I love it.” Schwartzman’s enthusiasm was quickly shot down by the taxi driver, who informed him that “that was the 90s” and “it’s not really like that anymore.”
“I said: ‘I guess I’m sort of living in the past,'” Schwartzman remembered, “He said: ‘It’s not like you’re going to see Noel Gallagher getting into the back of the car with a guitar.'”
Contrary to the cab driver’s promise, when Schwartzman left the cab, he was met with the sight of a Mancunian rock ‘n’ roll star. “As I got out in that street with all the guitar shops [Denmark Street in central London],” he explained, “Noel Gallagher was across the street with a guitar case in his hand, getting into the back of the car. I felt like I was in a scene from a movie.”
It’s easy to see why Schwartman considers this coincidence one of the “eeriest” things that has happened to him, though it also sounds like a dream for any self-described “Britpop geek”.
Hundreds of thousands of people joined online queues over the weekend in hopes of securing tickets to the reunion tour. Demand, dynamic pricing and website issues left many fans frustrated and unable to secure tickets.
Oasis have also received criticism for the price points of their reunion tour. The cheapest ticket available was £73, but most general admission tickets cost around £150, pricing out working class fans.
“The next great British guitar band,” Far Out‘s Lucy Harbron commented in an opinion piece, “coming from one of the country’s small working-class towns and powered by the influence of the greats that came before them, won’t be able to afford to get through the door.”
All reunion tour dates are now sold out.
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