Oasis Stop the Clocks

Yesterday morning I was inundated with a number of texts from friends and fathers asking about the truth behind reports of an Oasis split. ‘No chance’ I thought, ‘They split up at least once a year don’t they?’ ‘Just a falling out, can’t be serious’. But sure enough, after reading a story on the BBC website, and seeing a subsequent report on the news it is official, Noel Gallagher has quit Oasis.

If you asked me now what my feelings were upon finding out, I’m not sure I could tell you. With Oasis being my all time favourite band, Be Here Now being the first CD I ever bought, you would think it would have been crushing. I would have been distraught, shed a tear maybe? Oh no. I instead just sat there, trying in my head to work out a way that this could simply not be true. How could they split up? It’s Oasis. Yeah they weren’t exactly without controversy, the infamous Gallagher brothers being in and out of the limelight virtually from the beginning, bickering and rowing just like any brothers. It seems now to have gone that one argument too far though. Noel himself saying that he ‘couldn’t go on working with Liam a day longer.’

At this point, in all the news stories and articles at least, there lies a running history of the band, all the number ones, the albums, the awards, the bust-ups, everything. Re-told to you as a sort of eulogy towards the band. I’m not going to do that. Oasis are (were?) a big enough band that the story does not need retelling. We don’t need to hear everything we already know again. Instead I can only speak from my personal experience of the band, and that is as follows:

I’m not ashamed to say that Oasis are the best band I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. Not even one of. The. It’s safe for me to say that the reason I got into music at all, picked up the guitar, bought CDs, ended up doing a degree in Music Journalism, is pretty much down to Oasis, well, and my dad, for getting me into them in the first place. People talk of them having an up and down career, that the quality dwindled after ‘(What’s the Story)’. I don’t believe that. As Liam himself said on documentary ‘Lord Don’t Slow Me Down’, ‘I don’t think we got worse, I think people just got bored of us.’ If this is true, I was most definitely not one of these people.

I only ever got the pleasure of seeing the band once, last year in Liverpool, on my birthday no less. It was once of the best shows I’ve been to, and I only wish that I could have seen them more than once. Hope still remains though, in the potential for Noel to do a solo album/tour, and for a reunion, maybe not for a few years, but hope shall prevail no less.

So for now, farewell, to the best band to ever grace my CD player. You made me feel that tonight, and every night, I’m a rock n’ roll star. See you soon.