Fact #67777

Feature by Johnny Black
Oasis had existed for barely eighteen months, scratching a few quid here and there from support gigs, recording demos and beginning to make their presence felt in the regional press, when a big golden bus steered by the fickle finger of fate took them north, along with a motley bunch of their Manc scally mates, to King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow. Not even booked to play, they blagged their way into a brief slot at the bottom of an already crowded bill which, at £3.50 a head, had attracted a grand total of 69 ticket sales. They took the stage to an audience of around thirty disinterested punters but among that tiny throng stood Alan McGee, founder of burgeoning UK indie label, Creation Records. McGee was impressed by the music but, as he watched them, above and beyond the noise they made as a unit, he flashed onto something that nobody before him had spotted - that Liam Gallagher was already a star, and he was just waiting to go supernova.

Alan McGee : They’d been going for between one and two years and they’d played maybe 21 gigs. They should have been picked up but they’d fallen through the music business net because post-Madchester it was very untrendy to sign bands from Manchester.

Noel Gallagher : We shared a rehearsal room with a girl band called Sister Lovers. One of them used to go out with McGee, Debbie Turner I believe. She knew a lot of people in Glasgow and it was 18 Wheeler's gig, McGee had just signed them. So they knew them and had invited the Sister Lovers to play along with them. And for some reason, I don't know why, they thought it would be a good reason to get us up to play. We weren't invited by anybody, they asked if we wanted to go do this gig with them in Scotland and we were like, ‘Of course.’

So we hired a minibus and we got all our mates and we charged them. Well, we worked out it cost seventeen quid each to get up to Scotland and back again, and we paid for the petrol and the driver and the booze and all that. So we got up there and we knocked on the door and said, ‘We’re Oasis from Manchester.’

Alan Hake (bassist, 18 Wheeler) : I don’t remember a minibus. Both bands and their fans, about twenty people in all, had arrived in this enormous gold-painted 70’s tour bus. My first impression was that they looked like a bunch of soccer casuals but once we got talking, they were great.

Liam Gallagher : I thought I was the fuckin’ bee’s knees. And that’s what you need. I tried to dress well. I liked trainers. I think you’ve got to start from your feet; once you you’ve got your shoes then everything else falls into place.

Alan Hake : The headliners that night were Boyfriend, a bit like a Scottish version of the Replacements in that they really didn’t seem to give a fuck. They used to drink Mad Dog 20/20 Onstage – say no more.

Sister Lovers sounded a bit like a ramshackle version of The Faces, and I mean that in a good way. We already knew their singer Debbie so, when they turned up, Debbie came and asked Boyfriend and ourselves whether Oasis could play and we said, “Yeah, no bother.” We couldn’t see any problem with that but we had to tell them they couldn’t play for very long.

Debbie Turner (vocalist, Sister Lovers) : We told the promoter that if Oasis didn't play then we wouldn't and, because we were mates with Boyfriend, they said they wouldn't play if we didn't.

Ali Murdoch (gig rep, King Tut’s) : Boyfriend thought they could do what they liked, but I said no. I told them Oasis couldn’t play unless we were paid more money. We had agreed on three bands, and the engineer was paid per band.

Noel Gallagher : They said we weren’t due to play there tonight, and we said it’s all right ‘cos someone else had sorted it out blah blah blah. There was a lot of blagging going on anyway. They let us in with all the equipment, so we sat at the back. They said they only had got a license for three bands because of the curfew and all that nonsense.

We went up to see the owner of the club and we didn’t threaten to smash the place up, or intimidate anybody, but we did say, “We’ve travelled all this way, we’ve charged all these guys money - it’s not even as if they wanted to see us play! - so out of politeness can you give us ten minutes?” So he said, “Fair enough.”

Alan Hake : I certainly didn’t see any evidence of them threatening violence If they didn’t get to play. I don’t know who started that story but no-one I know experienced It.

Alan McGee : I was such a cantankerous git in those days, so I bowled in pissed, hoping basically to pull one of my sister’s mates. Sure enough, the girl didn’t show up.

Noel Gallagher : We didn't know that Alan McGee would be there that night. If we had, we wouldn't have gone. We'd have been too nervous.

Alan Hake : There were maybe 130 people in King Tut’s that night, including the bands and staff, but about 100 of them were downstairs in the bar. We were there having a drink with Alan McGee when Oasis went on and he immediately got up and went off to see them. He’d been tipped off by Debbie.

Alan McGee : The minute I saw him I thought, ‘He looks like Paul Weller – the kid looks like a fucking star’. And that was Liam.

Ayako Sugahara (audience) : Their performance that night was really wonderful! I wanted to know their band's name, but 18 Wheeler, Boyfriend, and Sister Lovers were mentioned on the ticket and no fourth band's name. They played first and only played a few songs. The audience weren't at the front and it seemed not many people were interested in them, but I thought they were so good.

Alan McGee : I knew I was going to sign them within two songs.

Noel Gallagher : We did four songs, and one of them was Wonderwall which went on for twenty minutes. What would happen is I would put my guitar down and leave it feeding back and go stand at the back.

Ayako Sugahara : I usually took my video camera to gigs, and must have shot more than 50 bands. And though this band was a mystery to me, they sounded so nice and outstanding compared to other bands I taped. I didn’t even know it was Oasis until I returned home to Japan, when a friend saw the video and realised that the songs they sang were in Oasis's album.

Ali Murdoch : They weren’t brilliant that night, but they stood head and shoulders above the Glasgow bands. They were proficient. Liam’s singing was perhaps the weak link. I couldn’t get my head around the drawling Manchester vocal. It was a bit out of tune.

Alan McGee : When I say it was brilliant, I mean it was pretty flawless. But at the same time I thought, “I can have this and I can maybe sell half a million around the world.”

Alan Hake : I only saw them play their last track, The Beatles’ I Am The Walrus, so they seemed to me like a covers band. They looked pretty awful too, mostly dressed in sports gear, which meant I was a bit shocked when McGee said they were great and that he wanted to sign them. I couldn’t see it.

Ayako Sugahara : When they finished playing, they didn't go back stage and just came down and went straight to the bar.

Noel Gallagher : McGee came up to me and asked what the band was called and if we had a record deal. I said no and he asked if I wanted one. I asked, ‘With who?’ and he said, ‘With me,’ so I was like, ‘Who Are you?’ and he said, ‘Alan McGee.’ He had a skinhead at this point and I had always seen him on telly with this big ginger afro. I gave him a copy of our demo but he gave it back to me saying he didn’t want to hear it, so then we managed to persuade him to take it back to London.

Ali Murdoch : In the end, they didn’t get paid. I think we gave them ten out-of-date Tennants as payment.

Noel Gallagher : To be quite honest, we’d have signed for anyone. But it was only Creation Records – Jesus & Mary Chain, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine. Give us it! I believe in fate and I believe it was all mapped out.

Thanks : Stewart Cruikshank, Stephen Pastel, Dave McGeechan, Douglas Stewart, Lee Beattie, Aarti Joshi.

First published in Q magazine.