Forever the People
eBook - ePub

Forever the People

Six Months on the Road with Oasis

Paolo Hewitt

Share book
  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Forever the People

Six Months on the Road with Oasis

Paolo Hewitt

Book details
Book preview
Table of contents
Citations

About This Book

Oasis had risen so swiftly, so dramatically, they now faced the question that no band has yet successfully answered. How do you maintain that rush of excitement which accompanies a rise to the top? And while you're at it, where exactly do you perform after you've played the biggest-ever UK gigs? This six-month tour would give them the answers. But not the ones they expected.

In the late 1990's Oasis ruled the world. Their album (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, had become one of the fastest selling records in history, ultimately one of the bestsellers of all time. And along with their instantly-legendary musical reputation went another - as the royal rabble-rousers of Britpop. The Gallagher brothers in particular were famous for drinking and fighting, the scourge of hotel managers the world over.

In 1997 came a new multi-million selling album, Be Here Now, and the start of a marathon global tour. With the band went writer Paolo Hewitt, their unofficial scribe and confidant. The result is this intimate, warm and hilarious account of a charismatic, world-famous group on tour and under stress, on-stage and off. It's a unique document, featuring cameos from Maradona, Paul Gascoigne, Johnny Depp and Naomi Campbell, while three hotels and two airlines attempted to ban the group worldwide.

International hotel chains will never see the like of Oasis again. And neither will we.

Frequently asked questions

How do I cancel my subscription?
Simply head over to the account section in settings and click on “Cancel Subscription” - it’s as simple as that. After you cancel, your membership will stay active for the remainder of the time you’ve paid for. Learn more here.
Can/how do I download books?
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
What is the difference between the pricing plans?
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlego’s features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan you’ll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
What is Perlego?
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Do you support text-to-speech?
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Is Forever the People an online PDF/ePUB?
Yes, you can access Forever the People by Paolo Hewitt in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Médias et arts de la scène & Musique. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Year
2020
ISBN
9781913527389

Five

HOLDING ON WITH BOTH HANDS
Australia and South America

Owing to an ongoing personal situation, Paolo missed the band's next five shows in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Perth. He joined them in Adelaide, Australia, as the furore over their behaviour on the plane from Hong Kong to Perth grew in the press.

True or false?
‘What’s the use of regrets?/They’re just lessons we haven’t learnt yet.’
Beth Orton, ‘The Sweetest Decline’

They swear fuck all happened. Well, it did. But nothing to warrant the fuss being made. Christ, the way the papers were going at it, you would have thought they were a group of murdering psychopaths.
Yeah, they were drunk and yeah, they did get a little boisterous and yeah, they did try and smoke bifters behind the stewardess’s back. But they didn’t hit anyone. Or threaten them. And as for the pilot saying that he nearly had to divert the plane, well, that was just grandstanding. And if they had acted that bad, why did Cathay Pacific later issue a statement admitting the incident had been overplayed?
Anyway, just as the dust was settling, Liam – who else? – gave an interview to a journalist. Asked about the incident, he vowed that if he found out the pilot was lying about diverting the plane, he’d stab him. Result? Cathay Pacific declared war, started discussing whether to permanently ban Oasis from all their planes.
Meanwhile Noel remained totally bemused by the fuss. ‘I was genuinely asleep the whole time. I didn’t see fuck all. Then I wake up and all of a sudden I’m public enemy number one.’ Again.

Eyewitness report on Oasis walking through Adelaide airport: ‘Liam Gallagher’s only comment to The Australian could best be translated as “yeeaahhhrrrgggh” while Noel, his songwriting sibling, strode straight through the mob waving his trademark Union Jack guitar over his head.
The Australian, Wednesday 25 February 1998

I have breakfast with Torsen. He works for Sony International marketing. I find him in the large dining room, where bright sunlight covers wide tables piled up with fruit and cereals, and this spacious layout, the warm colours, the healthy faces, it all makes you feel like you’ve woken up in a TV advert.
Torsen first worked with Oasis in Germany. Germany is important. It boasts the third-largest record-buying public. Torsen was charged with making the band successful there. He thought his task impossible. He couldn’t see how he could sell a band whose fuck-off attitude took absolute precedence over their will to undertake the necessary promotion. ‘But then the people heard the music,’ he explained and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘What can you do?’
I told him that the reverse effect had happened with a couple of my friends. Ever since hearing ‘Live Forever’ I had been talking about no one else. But these guys remained impassive, unimpressed. It was only when Oasis appeared on the ‘Brits’ and insulted a million and one folk that my phone started ringing. ‘That Oasis lot, you’re right, they’re OK, aren’t they?’
Back in the days of ‘Wonderwall’ and Knebworth they were. But how about now? What were Sony saying about Be Here Now? They believe it to be a great success, Torsen replied. It will sell about eight million copies world-wide. That good enough for you?
It wasn’t good enough for the people I’d been bumping into back in London. Julie told me before I arrived that her brother had been on the phone. He lived in Manchester and the word on Oasis was in the downwards direction. Too arrogant, too many bad words aimed against their home town. It’s all right for them but we have to live here, he complained.
Pedro agreed, went further. Said the lyrics to the new songs were not focused enough. Too much stuff about fame or mundane lines about the weather. Paul thought that Noel was coasting now. Two good songs on the album. ‘Magic Pie’ and ‘Don’t Go Away’. That was it.
Another Paul said the album was too much like the old stuff. You’d waited all this time eagerly anticipating what they would come up with next and when it finally arrived it was the same old, same old. The songs were too long, too self-indulgent, too fuelled by the Devil’s powder.
David agreed. Ask him about the ’90s and he’ll say there was only one group. Oasis. But Be Here Now? Sorry and all that. But not having it. The sound was too large. It deliberately covered up the ordinary nature of the songs. And so on. And so on. I remained unmoved and so did Torsen. Eight million Oasis fans can’t be wrong, he said. ‘But if they are,’ I pointed out, ‘that makes the next Oasis album a really intriguing proposition.’
‘Paolo,’ he replied in his thick accent. ‘Every Oasis album is an intriguing proposition.’
*
Bonehead said, ‘I’m mad to get off the beer.’ And you could tell he really meant it. But it was impossible. He was surrounded by bottles and cigs and the people holding them came at you from all angles until you finally said, ‘Ah, just the one.’
And then you were back on the roller-coaster.
*
I missed the gig in Adelaide, flew with the band instead to Melbourne. At the gig, Pete Barrett, a close friend who had moved out this way, said, ‘In the past bands were one thing. They were rock. Or they were hippy. Or they were glam. Now they can be everything.’
He meant that Oasis could be as tender as they could be tough and it wasn’t an issue, wasn’t noticeable. Not in our time.
*
Back at the Melbourne hotel, a room has been set aside for the after-show party. Coyley had now joined the tour. He’ll be with us until the end, by which time he will be married. Ruth and he will get hitched in Mexico. Noel, best man. Coyley is a United fan, fervent, committed to the last. He talks of them and of supporting your team as parents do of their families. You never leave your team. You devote yourself to them. For life, forever. Coyley is currently banned from Old Trafford. For swearing outrageously at the opposition before kick-off.
Noel is Manchester City. Big time. One time I saw him and Coyley argue the merits of their teams. If you didn’t know about football, Noel’s argument was so persuasive that he would have you believe that Manchester City were currently the greatest team ever and that Manchester United were a really poor second, destined for an isolated life in the lower divisions.
On the way home I said to Noel, ‘Anyone listening would have thought that you supported the winning team.’ He shook his fist victoriously in the air. ‘That’s the City way,’ he declared.
It figured. Self-confidence, blagging, a refusal of present-day truth, they’re requisite qualities when you’re an unknown band living in poverty, rehearsing in damp basements but are intent on world domination and having every one of your rock-star fantasies brought vividly to life.
And now the City fans were strangely silent as their team slid further and further down the Nationwide table. There was no banter, no ribbing. Just a strange quietness. This, Coyley couldn’t work it out. In all his years with Oasis, he’d never known anything like it. ‘Barnsley beat United and they didn’t say a thing, which means either they’ve got too much money or they’re so depressed they can’t talk about City.’ He paused. Then his face lit up. ‘Either way . . . it’s fucking top.’
*
The incident on the plane happened on a Thursday. By Sunday, the day of the gig, a fried-chicken outlet were running TV adverts that featured Oasis lookalikes about to throw food around a plane. But our chicken is so good, said the advert, you’d never waste it.
*
At the party in Melbourne, Liam took control of the music. When he put on The Beatles’ ‘A Day In The Life’, I looked around the room. Everybody – Australian, British, whatever – was either singing or unconsciously mouthing the words as they sat with friends, drinking, listening, gesticulating.
The Beatles, the real folk music of the world. Which is why you can’t hold Oasis up against them. Of course, huge staggering success is the common denominator between the bands. Which is why – much to the purists’ disgust – they get compared to the Fab Four. But will Oasis songs be so embedded in people’s souls 30 years from now?
Impossible to answer. But that’s the real test. And Noel knows it.
*
At the airport the next day, two young girls stood in a newspaper shop, staring at a picture of Liam in the paper. ‘One day,’ one of them avowed, ‘I am going to meet him.’ Liam sat but 20 yards away. Staring into a cup of nothing.
*
The band now travel separately to us. Most days; the first time we see them is on the plane when they’re safely ensconced in their first-class seats. Coyley has named the rest of us ‘the holiday-makers’.
When we arrive in Sydney the band are diverted to waiting cars, the rest of us take the normal route. I come off the plane with Huw, the soundman. In front is a TV crew. They want to ask passengers what it was like to fly for 45 minutes on a plane with Oasis. We pass them interviewing a middle-aged businessman. ‘Disgusting,’ Huw shouts as we walk on, smiling. The interviewer and cameramen note us, quickly finish their chat and now come running up from behind.
‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ the interviewer exclaims breathlessly. He is overweight, determined. ‘Do you have any complaints about the flight you’ve just been on?’
‘Yes,’ Huw replies. The interviewer motions quickly to his cameraman, who hurriedly switches on his instrument. The interviewer places his microphone directly in front of Huw.
‘Care to tell us what happened?’
‘Disgusting is what I would call it,’ Huw spits out, ‘and I will never fly on this airline again.’
‘You mean Oasis?’ asks the excited interviewer. He’s nailed them at last.
‘No, that man you were talking to. Swearing, drinking, fighting like that. And he had on the worst suit I’ve ever seen.’
And we walked away, laughing.
*
Mid-afternoon, the hotel bar of the Sheraton On The Park. Me and Noel, Noel and I. The bar is huge. Outside, in the park opposite, day bums move large chess pieces around a large board. Those playing don’t seem to have much money but the weather is hot, not uncomfortable. I keep thinking of grey London. And smiling.
Some of the band, notably Liam, have taken to wearing shorts. Never Noel, though. Always covered. He’s starting to feel the pinch now. Some of the gigs aren’t selling as well as he would like and the press are still hammering them for the plane incident, day in, day out. This strain he could do without it. It occasionally flicks across his face. He buys me a beer. Michael Jackson is playing through the speakers.
‘Is this Thriller?’ I ask, toying with the cold bottle. ‘The thriller diller.’
‘Which is better than being the failure in Australia,’ he morosely jokes. It may just be the first time I’ve ever heard him say ‘failure’. Wasn’t in his dictionary a year ago.
‘So are you really taking a year off?’
‘Too fucking right. Maybe two. Give a shit. Sit and get fat and watch TV all day.’
‘Right. And not write any songs?’
‘No. Instead I’m going to make a very significant dent in my publishing money. I’m going to buy an island and blow it up. I am going to stand on top of a mountain with a spear in my hand and blow the fucker to pieces. That is precisely what I intend to do when I get home.’
‘Another drink then?’
‘Paolo, knock it on the head with the questions. I’m not in the mood. Here,’ he says, slightly brightening up, ‘have you noticed those burger places called Harry Jack’s? They’re actually KFCs but one of the burger chains bought the rights to the name in all these countries. Marcus told me. At first I thought, Bastards. Then I thought, That’s fucking genius. So I said to Marcus, Run a check on Blur, Shed 7, Embrace in every country and then buy their names. That way we can nick all their merchandising money.’
‘What did you think of the gig in Melbourne?’
Noel sighs, puts down his drink. ‘You can tell we’re getting to the end of the tour. I’m such a tosser sometimes. I’m onstage, I’ve got thousands of people there screaming at me and the band and all I can think about is a pair of shoes I should have bought earlier that day.’
*
Two days later Liam sits in the bar with Bonehead and Whitey. Day off. The night before they had played Sydney’s Entertainment Centre. Not fantastic but a good show, good crowd. The Australian band You Am I were on support duties and Noel, especially, had become a big fan. I watched them but I couldn’t see it myself. But Noel kept on and on. ‘You’ll get to like them,’ he would tell me.
‘No, don’t do it for me,’ I’d reply. ‘Too much like early Jam.’
‘What and Weller never ripped off anyone?’ he spat back. Noel can tongue-lash good sometimes, catch you unawares with his sharp tongue, especially when he feels you contradicting ...

Table of contents