It's All Coming Back To Me Now - Oasis

Thursday is more than just your average Thursday when it comes to It's My Kind of Scene. For us, Thursday is VINTAGE THURSDAY; a day to take a look back at amazing music from years gone by. Each week, Jo Michelmore will be giving your memory a swift kick of awesomeness, covering some bands/genres/gigs from the past. For those of you who were, you know, born when all this was going on, by the end of each post there'll be a lot of memories coming back to you... now? Now!

OASIS

by Jo Michelmore

Oasis. Who are they? What were they? I think they broke up, but those Gallagher brothers had so many fights I can’t remember if they ever actually broke up. Maybe Liam just walked off stage one too many times and didn’t come back one day. Maybe on a stage somewhere Noel and the others (who are they? I’m sure there’s more) are still playing somewhere, waiting for Liam to come back. Actually, I shouldn’t be so harsh, that’s not completely true, I know for a fact Liam’s band Beady Eye were at numerous Big Day Outs in Australia this year and the members of Beady Eye were once members of Oasis. (They probably have some incredible stories to tell, hanging out with those Gallaghers for so long, so I shouldn’t mock.) Noel, the other monobrowed Gallagher, has a band called ‘Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds’. Ego much? This week, when referencing Oasis, he said; “Nothing anybody does can be as big as Oasis. Not Coldplay, not Kasabian, not the Arctic Monkeys, in this country not U2, not any of them, its as simple as that.” Oh I do love a good rock ego. There’s just not enough of those these days.

Anyway, maybe he’s right, what an incredible band. When they got it right, they got it so right. The first album ‘Definitley Maybe’ released in 1994, was just a taste of how good they could be. ‘Supersonic’, the first single, so British, so many hilarious rhymes, so singalong. ‘Cigarettes And Alcohol’; retro without sounding old. It was fantastic. The second album '(What’s The Story) Morning Glory’; that’s the Oasis I really love, song after song after song that are just made for singing really loudly to. No one sounds out of tune singing to Oasis, everyone just sounds English. Awesome. ‘Champagne Supernova’ remains one of my favourites in the road trip playlist. I myself have given ‘Morning Glory’ a performance at karaoke, everyone can sing that chorus successfully. “Whoooooooooaaaaaaah!" ‘Wonderwall’, ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’, it’s an album full of songs that make you say; “Oh! That song! I love that song!” The third album, ‘Be Here Now’ released in '97, well, all I shall say is 'Morning Glory' was a hard album to follow. ‘Stand By Me’ has a great clip, ‘Don’t Go Away’ has great lyrics and the album sold over eight million copies, but the Gallagher brothers antics were getting more publicity than their music. They released four more albums between 2000 and 2009 and continued to sell loads of records and win bunches of awards in the UK but they never quite reached the peak of Morning Glory’s popularity. Still, during their career, they sold more than 50 million albums. I’m assuming that’s more than you’ve sold. It’s more than I’ve sold, so kudos to that boys.

When Liam and Noel weren’t fighting for long enough to play a gig together, their live performances were legendary and if you were lucky, hilarious. Even though Liam barely moved with his hands behind his back and Noel spent most of his time avoiding looking at his brother, they had that magic thing that great rock stars seem to have, some would say an ‘x factor’, a star quality. Whether you were seeing them in the hope you’d see a train wreck of a band or an amazing performance, hopefully you were lucky enough to see a little from column A and a little from column B, preferably more from A, I mean B. I was lucky enough to see them in 1998 and that’s exactly what I got. Liam left the stage without a word about half way through and Noel kept the show together until Liam wandered back out, slightly more intoxicated, 20 or more minutes later. Brilliant. I remember the sing-alongs to ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ and ‘Wonderwall’ as some of the best I’ve ever been lucky enough to be involved in. I remember leaving satisfied. That’s a good gig, even remembering it all these years later.


Oasis. You were good for a while there. I love how both Gallaghers are still as arrogant now as ever. How fantastic. Let’s encourage more of that behaviour. What we need is another set of Gallaghers. Oh, and one more thing. Oasis provided some of my fave singalong lyrics that I absolutely love. After all, they pose a good question about so much of the '90's. "Where were you while we were getting high?"