One mum at the rugby sidelines last weekend was so angry she swore very loudly.
Mortified, she looked up.
“I’m sorry”, she said, beetroot of face. “It’s Oasis. The site just crashed.”
Like 50 per cent of parents I saw at a football or rugby game in Dundee on Saturday, she was desperately trying to get tickets online for their long (long) awaited reunion tour.
I was one of them. I continued to wait in a queue while my boys warmed up; started to get somewhere in said queue as the match started; and missed my middle boy’s try just as the website crashed.
At this point, I felt faintly ridiculous and decided to give up and watch the game.
But those young Oasis fans who are now parents with responsibilities and dependents? We may have grown, but we want the hottest ticket in town with the ardent fervour of a besotted teenager.
Every second parent was doing the same thing, staring in fury at frozen or crashing sites on screens.
Oasis mania – from Dundee to Doncaster, Derby and Devon – has swept the nation since Liam and Noel Gallagher made up for a stadium tour.
‘He can be brilliant…’
It feels only appropriate that I join anyone who has an Oasis anecdote, to share my own.
It didn’t involve throwing a TV out a hotel window or any of the rock n roll stories for which they are famed in their late 90s heyday.
It was the premiere of…SpongeBob SquarePants in Leicester Square, London, where Liam Gallagher was on the list of people confirmed to attend.
And I was the showbiz reporter tasked with talking to him.
Dominic, my boss at the time who had experience interviewing Liam, said: “Try to chat to him.
“Sometimes he can be brilliant but sometimes, he really can’t. I can’t imagine he’ll want to talk, especially if he’s with his kids.”
Along with a dozen or so other journalists, I waited for the Mancunian music legend.
At this point in writing my column, I panicked.
Liam Gallagher at a SpongeBob SquarePants premiere – did this actually happen?
It sounded vaguely hallucinogenic. Did all those years of free bars and canapés make me, well, muddled?
‘Quite wonderful’
I Googled it and felt relieved – for it was 2005, I was 27 and there the pictures were to prove he was right there along with his then pre-school son Gene.
I remember seeing him and call his name.
Over he came and there he was, arguably Britain’s most effortless style icon, resplendent in trademark parka.
And so I asked what any self-respecting showbiz journo would and said: “Hi Liam, do you like SpongeBob SquarePants?”
And he said this: “I fooking (or, think ‘lookin’ starting with an ‘f’’) love SpongeBob SquarePants. Love him.”
He fixed me with an intense stare framed by those splendid eyebrows, as if he was really thinking about how much he loved the animated character, then gave the faintest of smiles, took his son’s hand and walked off to see the film.
Strange, but true – and quite wonderful.
Oasis in Dundee
I’d have to concur with the thinking of many that there is simply something about Liam.
Lucky enough to see Oasis play, also in 2005 at the now-closed Coronet in Elephant and Castle, London, I remember that swagger and iconic stance, head craned up to the mic.
As Robbie Williams said this week: “Liam Gallagher reading his phone on the toilet would be more charismatic and intriguing than 99.9 per cent of the world’s population at their most enigmatic.”
Did Liam always have this effect?
Well, 30 years ago in The Courier, Oasis’ only Dundee gig was reviewed by Roddy Isles, on April 5, 1994 at Lucifer’s Mill.
The band were yet to release their debut single but Roddy felt there was something different and special about the band – and Liam.
His unearthed review from the gig, which had an audience of 74 and 17 advance tickets sold at £3 a go, is well worth a read.
With all three Scotland dates – at Murrayfield Stadium – selling out instantly, I wouldn’t be the only one hoping (though knowing the chances were slim as an understatement) to wonder if Oasis ever consider a smaller date in Dundee, given the calibre of acts we attract and how our city is flying.
And then, something in my research jumped out.
Where did it all start?
A little over half an hour from Dundee with a short concert at Gleneagles Hotel – there’s even footage online.
Would it not make perfect sense, after a 16-year hiatus, to start with a smaller gig rather than hit Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium with a crowd of 74,500?
While it would be irresponsible to start a rumour they’re kicking off their 2025 tour in Scotland again, for old times sake, just as they did on that seminal tour 30 years ago.
I wouldn’t bet against it. It could happen.
Definitely.
Maybe.
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