The first single from Oasis’ best-selling album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory was released 25 years ago this week.
Some Might Say was the last Oasis track to feature original drummer Tony McCarroll, who left the band before the main recording sessions for the album after tensions mounted between him and Noel Gallagher.
To mark the anniversary, we look back at three special north-east gigs which have gone down in Oasis folklore as some of the band’s wildest.
Gleneagles, Perthshire, February 6, 1994
Oasis had only just signed their first record deal when they performed to a room full of music executives at Gleneagles Hotel.
The Sony Music conference gig was their first ever to be recorded in full and they played six songs which would eventually be included on the band’s debut album Definitely Maybe.
Shakermaker, Bring It On Down, Digsy’s Dinner, Live Forever, Cigarettes and Alcohol and Supersonic were performed at the Sony Music conference.
Guitarist Noel Gallagher turned up drunk for the soundcheck which took place in an empty hall, with no audience, at 10 in the morning.
It was at the soundcheck that they played a cover version of I Am The Walrus from The Beatles.
The secret Perthshire link to Cigarettes and Alcohol
The warm-up was recorded and the song actually ended up as a B-side on the band’s fourth single Cigarettes and Alcohol.
But that wasn’t known until many years later.
Noel set the record straight on the B-side which was titled as being live from the Cathouse in Glasgow.
He didn’t want to put ‘Live at Sony Seminar in Gleneagles’ on the cover and they already had a version of it from the Glasgow gig which sounded quite similar.
Noel thought the Gleneagles version in the empty hall sounded better so they instead used that thinking nobody would know.
They mixed it with some crowd noise which was taken from a Faces bootleg album.
“Sorry to anyone who bought it on the premise of being at that gig,” he said.
Jackie Stewart’s golf cart and air rifle
Guitarist Paul Arthurs stealing racing legend Jackie Stewart’s golf cart and air rifle from Gleneagles Country Club to shoot trees after the gig is also part of Oasis legend.
In the 1996 book “Getting High – The Adventures of Oasis” by Paolo Hewitt the band admitted the story was told as a straight lie by Noel to Johnny Hopkins, who managed to con The Mirror into printing it as a factual story.
Oasis were already getting a reputation for loutish behaviour and the Gleneagles story would only go on to enhance their name within the media as well as with the wider public.
Lucifer’s Mill, Dundee, April 5, 1994
Oasis played a pub gig to 60 people at Lucifer’s Mill after selling just 17 advance tickets.
But those present witnessed a spine-tingling display of rock n’ roll debauchery with lightning-like guitar riffs and sneering vocals from singer Liam Gallagher.
Oasis rocked through a set list including Live Forever, Columbia and Supersonic which were songs which would shape their explosive gigs for the next 15 years.
Liam looked like a rock star
Matt Irvine, who used to operate in Lucifer’s Mill, said: “We’d heard they were an up-and-coming band who had a reputation for their rowdy gigs.
“I was really into the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays at the time and heard Oasis were taking over a good vibe.
“And they were electric – I thought they were great.
“Liam was in great voice and really looked like the rock star – even back then.”
The band left their mark on the Dundee venue in more ways than one.
When they were in the dressing room before the gig, Noel carved a Manchester City FC logo onto a water boiler.
Singer Liam Gallagher and bass player Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan also etched their names in the old dressing room along with Manchester City graffiti.
The graffiti was rediscovered in 2003 before the venue closed down.
Gig memento thrown out with the rubbish
The bands that played Lucifer’s used to sign a set of drumsticks after the gig.
Noel signed a set for the pub and they were kept downstairs but they ended up being put in the bin when the place was being cleared out.
The band’s original drummer Tony McCarroll said: “I have memories of doing the smaller circuit sometimes to only two people then repeating a year later to a few hundred locked out.
“It escalated very fast as people learned how good this band was.
“We worked each territory from the ground up and the word spread fast.”
Just two years later hundreds of people queued overnight outside Groucho’s in Dundee to buy tickets for the band’s two shows at Loch Lomond, which attracted 80,000.
Oasis would play to 250,000 fans in Knebworth one week later, the largest outdoor gig in UK history at the time.
AECC, Aberdeen, September 19, 1997
After years of dance music, plastic pop and electronic beats dominating the charts, Liam and Noel Gallagher made it fashionable to be in a guitar band again.
Oasis were now the biggest band in the world after the success of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory when they went on a world tour to promote their follow-up album Be Here Now.
The band were staying at the Raemoir House Hotel before the gig and stopped in for a couple of drinks at the Garlogie Inn where they sipped pints at the quiet village pub.
Give me gin and tonic
Nick Quinn, co-owner, said: “I remember Liam refusing to give an autograph to a girl unless he got hers as well.
“I just couldn’t believe how nice a guy he was.
“They were staying at the Raemoir so he must have noticed us on the way there and came in for a couple of lagers.
“They couldn’t have been nicer guys.”
Travis lead singer Fran Healy reduced Liam to tears with an impromptu backstage performance before the gig when the Scottish band were supporting Oasis.
He said: “Liam made me come into his dressing room and sing a song, so I performed a song of ours called Luv.
“I was very nervous, so I had my head down, and when I looked up at the end of it he had tears streaming down his face.”
Trashing tambourines and microphone stands
At the start of the gig, a man in a tailor suit and top hat appeared onstage to beckon the crowd to scream and clap, while the opening piano loop for the song Be Here Now began playing over the concert PA.
The band then entered onto the stage through a large door in a prop telephone box with Liam dressed in a skinny-rib army-style jumper, complete with shoulder patches.
Liam was trashing tambourines and microphone stands when he finally took to the stage and the band played 17 songs including seven from the new album.
Set highlights included Stay Young, Stand By Me, Supersonic, Some Might Say and Live Forever which Liam dedicated to the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales.
He told the crowd: “I definitely ain’t no royalist – no way.
“But this song is dedicated to someone’s mother, Princess Diana, live forever.”
It was completely mental, unrestrained, rebellious rock n’ roll.”
Former Oasis boss Alan McGee described the Aberdeen gig as one of his top five best gigs performed by the band.
“Not every date on this tour was a highlight, but Oasis were on fire in Aberdeen,” he said.
“It was completely mental, unrestrained, rebellious rock n’ roll.
“Oasis became a gargantuan juggernaut of electric feedback and primal beats.”
Oasis went on to play Aberdeen three times more in 2002, 2005 and 2008, before finally splitting up in 2009.
