Update: Oasis to Rescue Music: Again: Ends Feud with Blur; Plus: Classic Oasis Toronto Quotes

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An article about Oasis from Toronto's Watch magazine, October 12, 1994

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Update: Including some classic Liam Gallagher quotes from back in 1994:

From www.guardian.co.uk: by Alan McGee: Turning 48 yesterday, I realised the only Creation band that I still get excited about is Oasis. And who wouldn't? The band contains two world-class songwriters, and two great ones, and their new release Dig Out Your Soul is truly tremendous. It's as if they have re-imagined their discography and made their true follow-up to What's the Story Morning Glory, completing the elusive and perfect rock'n'roll trilogy that began with Definitely Maybe.

The music world needs Oasis at this moment, a band with more personality and more amusing quips than any British band for at least 10 years. Throughout their history Oasis have captured the pop zeitgeist (and my personal zeitgeist) as a band that combine the best elements of the Beatles and Sex Pistols to emerge as this generation's Rolling Stones.

"Better than Morning Glory", has become many a critic's meme when reviewing post-Morning Glory Oasis albums, thrown into reviews in a random fashion as a desperate bid to return the band to the halcyon days of old. You know what? Dig Out Your Soul is the best Oasis album since What's the Story Morning Glory. Easy.

The signs were good when I met up with the Gallagher brothers last year in Los Angeles. We discussed music and, curiously, Noel told me how much he liked Glasvegas. I was surprised that he had heard of them at that point. The evening fell into typical Oasis debauchery: hanging out with Brody Dalle and Biffy Clyro and ending up in a dub club in east LA with Oasis participating in a stage invasion. The surreal nature of being Noel Gallagher must be bizarre. Noel, at his best, writes songs about pure escapism, northern ambition and transcending class culture, all in rock'n'roll Technicolor. The question is: "What do you do when you've achieved all your dreams?" You return to your youth and get back to who you were.

Dig Out Your Soul works because Noel has returned to the original inspiration of his youth for his songwriting. Definitely Maybe was about their dreams of rock'n'roll stardom, Morning Glory was about achieving the dream, Be Here Now was the coked-up aftermath, now Dig Out Your Soul is a glance to a psychedelic yesterday, again. For me, the past four post-Morning Glory albums never captured the magic of the first two. Songs from the past five albums had moments of pop reverberations and incredible songwriting, but were never complete statements. With Dig Out Your Soul, the notorious Oasis brothers have found their mojo. It's back, without a doubt.

Musically, it's a return to the grander ambitions and excess of before, with Noel stating: "But I kind of like fancy! I'd like to make an absolutely fucking colossal album. You know? Like literally two orchestras, stuff like that." Dig Out Your Soul is Oasis at their most baroque and Noel's pure pop ambition sits easily with his experimental side. The album oozes with confidence, and great songs.

Maybe it is their the lucky seventh album? The Beatles and the Stones released Revolver and Beggar's Banquet respectively, both were album number seven, and Dig Out Your Soul is on a par of with both in terms of classic songwriting. Or maybe it was his musical peer Paul Weller who inspired Noel to turn his back on Britpop and take a more eclectic direction after Weller's own opus of 22 Dreams? Noel Gallagher has said that Shock of the Lightning was the only song that had "Oasis single status" as the rest is far removed from the sound of Oasis.

I love the decision not to make the album freely available to download, as the Charlatans and Radiohead have. Noel's decision to release the sheet music and lyrics is very Noel; not encouraging free music, but encouraging kids to pick up guitars, learn songs and YouTube them. Or forming a personal army of New York City buskers to perform Dig Out Your Soul - and why not?

These songs are fantastic. From the opening Bag It Up, with the "freaks coming out through the floor", capturing the sound of drug psychosis; the Buffalo Springfield raga glam-stomp of Get Off Your High Horse Lady; the street-fighting vibe of Waiting for the Rapture, the Left Bank psychedelic baroqueness of To Be Where There's Life; the Dear Prudence lift on The Turning - Dig Out Your Soul is the sound of one of Britain's greatest bands at play.

Liam's soulful vocals are utter gems, no longer the one-take hooligan of before, he plays it like a psychedelic Elvis, underpinning the tracks with a commanding presence. Noel's vocal turn on Falling Down is one of the best tracks he has ever sang on. It is subtle, haunting, and full of pure Noel Gallagher magic.

I understand that openly admitting to liking Oasis is inviting confrontation, but you know what? Being an Oasis fan is never having to say I'm sorry. And I'm not. Leave saying sorry to the Coldplay imitators as their era of bedwetter music is over. It's only Glasvegas and Oasis for competition in this country. If you are in a band and are not artistically competing with the creative rock'n'roll genius of Oasis or Glasvegas, it's time to just stop and get off the treadmill. This is how rock'n'roll should be done in the United Kingdom today.

GALLAGHER ENDS OASIS VS BLUR FEUD

Ever since Blur and Oasis went head-to-head in the UK singles chart in 1995, the two Britpop bands have been sworn enemies. But age and experience seem to have mellowed Oasis' Noel Gallagher, who yesterday admitted that he thought Blur's "Beetlebum" was a "great tune". The singer, speaking on Russell Brand's Radio 2 show, was given the choice between Blur's track and the Smiths' "Still Ill", and to the surprise of the listeners (and Brand, who is a lifelong Smiths devotee), chose his archrivals' 1997 hit. Oasis' seventh studio album, Dig Out Your Soul, is out on 6 October, and the band will be appearing at the BBC Electric Proms at the Camden Roundhouse on 26 October.

From Toronto's Watch Magazine, 1994: “Crap bands. That motivates us to be big,” says Liam confidently. “We were pissed off listening to all the daft bands - blagging the kids that this is what it is all about when it’s not. We are there to prove them all wrong. No bullshit, no strings attached - just simple rock n’ roll.”

“We are fucking slick, a big machine! But we’ve not been trained. We know our songs are fucking good. We know we’ve got the best songs on the fucking planet. It ain’t just England - we know our kid (Noel) write the best songs in a long, long time. Since the days of Lennon and McCartney. And he’s doing it on his own.”

“We’re not hype - I laugh at the English press. They’re stupid. They don’t even understand our music. They like it, that’s about it. Then they’ve got to write about me and our kid fighting, bits about trashing the hotel.”

“Our mums know about it. I was doing drugs since I was 13. Sniffing gas, sniffing glue, drinking cider, getting off my face.”

“Our kid, he’s a bit of a singer, but he knows he can’t sing. He says I can’t write a song. We are both kind of jealous of each other. That’s how I see it anyway. I don’t know. He thinks he’s the only one who really loves music, and his own brother don’t understand it. And I want to prove to him I mean it a little more than he does - and it freaks him out. He sings totally different - then I get a grip of it and I bite the head off of it.”

“There’s a day when you turn around and say, right “Do you want this to be every Tuesday, Thursday night, like a fucking scout club meeting, or do you want it to be real?” If you want it to be real, you’ve got to be here every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday - you can’t go out drinking with your mates or doing this with your bird. You can’t have a bird if you want to be the biggest band in the world - this is what it’s about. If you don’t like it, piss off, tell us now.”

“If someone likes you and you're on their label, they are going to talk about you. We’ve done all the shit gigs man. The reason why we are big is because we are fucking crafty. We’ve done four sell-out tours within the space of four months. What other band does that? - none. We’ve had a single out every month. People are just tripping. There’s no big mafia working us up. If there is, I don’t fucking know it. No one’s told me.

“They just want to build us up as hype and then see if they can knock us down. But they won’t be able to - ’cause we are writing the best songs - we can rip their papers up and wipe our bums with it and throw it in the fucking bin, they can’t do it with us. They can do it with Suede, ’cause Suede let em. If someone stitches me in the paper and I meet them in London or wherever, they get it, I tell them.

“A couple weeks ago we were on the front cover of the NME, Melody Maker - we didn’t even do an interview with the NME. They just sneaked over and got a picture, the picture that was on the cover of the NME was going to be for VOX.

“They got (freelance photographer) Keving Cummings to sell the VOX picture to the NME. Now Kevin Cummings don’t come near us, if he does I’ll slap him, and I’ve told him. He says this is for VOX, and the next fucking day it’s on the front cover of the NME without even an interview with us.

“They can try and have a backlash - we will release Whatever at xmas with proper Beatles styling, which will sell thousands and thousands of fucking copies and put us in the charts.”

When former Jam powerhouse and English pop icon Paul Weller dropped by an Oasis gig, the meeting was blown into the clash of titan egos by the press.

“He comes to the gig because he likes the music. We chilled out with him. You know how the press works, they just build it up. They made out as if Paul Weller walked in our dressing room and our kid fucking snaps at him. He loves Paul Weller. This is bullshit, I’m not having the NME or the Melody Maker deciding what we are. No way, I’m not having it.”

In fact Liam sees Weller on holy ground. “The other two guys in the band were dicks, I don’t care for them at all. Paul Weller was a diamond. He wrote some mega songs. They are bloody selling groceries, trying to get it together.

“Everyone is going they should form the Jam again - no way man. They look like 50-year-old men, them two now. Paul Weller looks like a young lad now. He’s kept it together, why should he go back, go jamming with them again. He’s still young.”

It took just one tour with Primal Scream for Oasis to determine who is the greatest rock n’ roll band alive. Lead singer Bobby Gillespie’s degenerate 70s roadshow follies didn’t impress Liam.

“They ain’t the rock n’ roll band everybody makes them out to be. There’s only three in Primal Scream - the rest are all hiding. A rock n’ roll band to me is about five people who know each other very well, they are all friends. They ain’t the last rock n’ roll band, we are! Fucking idiots, we are! Well we aren’t the last, but we are the rock n’ roll band to date if there is one about - not Primal Scream.

“Plus he (Gillespie) smells and they don’t wash their clothes. They are too rock n’ roll cliche, you know what I mean. I know for a fact lot of these rock n’ roll types look at us and say we aren’t rock n’ roll because we have trainers. So fucking what! It’s not all about winkle pickers, skin-tight pants and long greasy hair. That’s Guns n’ Roses material!”

Oasis have called off a concert in Canada after guitarist Noel Gallagher failed to recover from injuries received during a stage invasion earlier in the week.

The 41-year-old needed hospital treatment after being knocked over when a man stormed onto the stage during a performance at the V Festival in Toronto on Sunday.

Despite his injuries, Gallagher returned to the stage a few minutes after the incident to complete the band's set, but a statement on the band's website has informed fans that the rocker is still recovering from the fall.

It said: "Following an incident during Oasis' performance at the Virgin Festival in Toronto, when Noel was attacked by a stage invader Oasis are regrettably being forced to announce that tonight's show in London, Ontario cannot go ahead as planned."

"Noel fell heavily onto his monitor speakers when he was pushed suddenly from behind by his attacker and suffered bruising to his ribs and hip. He was examined in a local hospital after the band's performance and has been advised to rest.

"Unfortunately, despite resting up yesterday, the extent of his injuries mean he will not be able to perform tonight."

The concert has now been rescheduled for December 15 and organisers have promised refunds for those unable to attend the new date.

Toronto police have charged 47-year-old Daniel Sullivan with the assault, which was captured on camera by a fan and posted on the YouTube website.

Oasis' next performance is set for this Friday in New York.

It seems the Canadian attacker has been charged with assault, but the body blow was hard enough to knock Noel out of action for now: no more Canadian concerts. Canada has a history of fan/band conflict: in the 1980s, Scotland's Jesus and Mary Chain wailed on an audience member, leading to charges and a prolonged Toronto court case.

The band has had a rowdy past, but this tackle must have come as a surprise with their fighting days well back in the 90s. Noel has been taken to hospital with possible fractured ribs. What's in that toxic Lake Ontario water?

By Anita Singh, Telegraph newspaper

The band were mid-way through their headline set at the V Festival and performing the song Morning Glory when the man ran on from backstage andknocked Gallagher to the ground.

Security guards wrestled the intruder to the floor and dragged him away, with brother Liam in pursuit. The man, aged in his 30s, was later arrested.

The band dropped their instruments and left the stage but returned after a 15 minute break to resume their set, to cheers from the 25,000-strong audience.

Gallagher did not look any the worse for his ordeal and the band went on to play Don't Look Back In Anger, Wonderwall and a cover of the Beatles hit I Am The Walrus.

The singer and guitarist joked that the attack had added "a little excitement" to proceedings.

A festival spokesman described the incident as a "security breach", with the assailant somehow evading V security staff and the band's own minders. "Oasis understand sometimes these things happen," the spokesman said.

This is the second time Gallagher has been attacked during a show.

In 1994, a fan jumped on stage during a Newcastle gig and punched him in the face. The night ended in a riot. And in 1997, the band were forced to abandon a gig in Glasgow when guitarist Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs was hit by a bottle.