My Best Tunes

Festivities at the Notting Hill carnival were marred late on Monday evening after it emerged that a 15-year-old had suffered multiple stab wounds and was in a serious condition yesterday.

Festivities at the Notting Hill carnival were marred late on Monday evening after it emerged that a 15-year-old had suffered multiple stab wounds and was in a serious condition yesterday.

Noel Gallagher was my near neighbour when Oasis burst on to the scene in 1993. I interviewed them first, but even then you could sense this combustible band might not live for ever

New bands can be extremely delicate. Some local chancers had decided they weren’t ready for press (in the Manchester Evening News? Oh, perr-leeze), leaving me with no lead feature. The pub beckoned. On the way, I bumped into one of my neighbours. I’d seen his band recently, and asked what he was up to.

“Guess what happened in Glasgow last night?” he replied. It was Noel Gallagher, and the band were Oasis.

Noel told me how Alan McGee had barged backstage after their now-legendary gig at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, and signed them on the spot. I threatened him with battery if he was lying. I interviewed a still-reeling Noel that day, alongside an admittedly unpredictable but otherwise sweet and pleasant Liam, who tempered his obvious glee by striding around in a show of brash, comedy bravado.

There were no fraternal fisticuffs, just some genial ribbing, as Noel – clearly in control and articulate as ever – reined in the overexcited Liam. I remember Noel’s exquisite but compact music collection, including the Stones (Noel used a photo of a young Mick Jagger on his backstage photo-pass and nobody noticed) and early REM (I don’t remember seeing any Beatles). The result was the first full article on Oasis to run anywhere.

The signs were already there. A friend rented the rehearsal room next door. He’d hear a massive Gallagher bust-up, sullen silence, and then they’d play I Am the Walrus ad infinitum.

I witnessed their live debut. No matter what you think of them, they had the tunes, and even for an audience of roughly 25, Liam exhibited that trademark swagger, as if he was headlining Glastonbury, not the Boardwalk. Geoff Travis of Rough Trade checked out the long-forgotten support band, leaving soon after. My snippet in the MEN was headlined: “Oasis Are Going Places”. They were, and they did.

Everything got silly. I sent a mutual friend in America the ridiculous Oasis Xmas wrapping paper, free with the NME. Liam became red-top gossip fodder. Previously, I’d seen him at the Hacienda, already targeted by several adventurous ladies. Noel’s then girlfriend (who apparently said: “Your music’s shite/ It keeps me up all night.”) whispered, “That boy’s heading for trouble - Noel’s warned him.”

I will always remember those first gigs, where Oasis sparkled, but the magic is long dead. It was an amazing journey to watch, but I wish they’d stopped after (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? – remembered as legends, not flawed and faded icons.

In a festival heavy on over-familiar or unimpressive bands, it was left to last night’s closing act Radiohead to wrong-foot everyone. The odds on their angst-ridden singer Thom Yorke’s first words being “Whassup?” followed by the initial hit song they’ve all but disowned, “Creep”, would have been prohibitively long.

Dame Vera Lynn, the forces’ sweetheart who kept the nation’s morale up during the Second World War, is back in the charts for the first time in half a century.

In a festival heavy on over-familiar or unimpressive bands, it was left to last night’s closing act Radiohead to wrong-foot everyone. The odds on their angst-ridden singer Thom Yorke’s first words being “Whassup?” followed by the initial hit song they’ve all but disowned, “Creep”, would have been prohibitively long.

Dame Vera Lynn, the forces’ sweetheart who kept the nation’s morale up during the Second World War, is back in the charts for the first time in half a century.

In a festival heavy on over-familiar or unimpressive bands, it was left to last night’s closing act Radiohead to wrong-foot everyone. The odds on their angst-ridden singer Thom Yorke’s first words being “Whassup?” followed by the initial hit song they’ve all but disowned, “Creep”, would have been prohibitively long.

The Arctic Monkeys play their first UK show in two years with an ease confirming their special status.

Noel Gallagher said he quit Oasis after becoming the victim of intolerable “violent and verbal intimidation”.