While the sworn enemies of Oasis, now in their fifties, could begin a reformation, we look back at the group’s shattering break-up fifteen years ago, in the dressing rooms of the Parisian festival.
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In the history of rock, it is a legendary road accident, the date of which is marked with a black stone. On the evening of Friday 28 August 2009, the British group Oasis led by Noel and Liam Gallagher, had a violent argument backstage at the Parisian Rock en Seine festival and decided in the process to end an 18-year adventure that had led the Mancunians to the height of glory and Britpop.
On the first evening of the three days of this 2009 edition of the festival, 30,000 people, a third of them English fans, await the arrival of Oasis on the lawn of the Domaine de Saint-Cloud, which is sold out. Despite the antics of the group and the mediatized disputes between the two brothers, no one suspects that a monstrous, unthinkable rabbit is going to be put in their way by the quintet author of (What’s The Story) Morning Glory ? (1995), one of the best-selling rock albums of all time.
At 10:05 p.m., while the audience was growing impatient at the foot of the main stage, a festival official courageously took the microphone: “I am announcing that unfortunately, sOn the Rock en Seine website, Liam and Noel had a fight. It happened earlier, Noel left. The band doesn’t exist anymore. He won’t play tonight and cancels the rest of his European tour.“
A year after the last-minute cancellation of Amy Winehouse’s concert at the same location, the public initially believed it was a schoolboy joke by Oasis and Rock en Seine to make up for the brats’ unjustified delay. They’re definitely going to show up.
But they won’t come. The crowd is so stunned that it protests weakly, contenting itself with booing its disappointment for long minutes, especially since the group Madness, who played a little earlier on another stage, takes over at short notice for a nice extension.
But it’s worse than fans imagine: Oasis really is over, Noel Gallagher confirmed shortly after on the band’s website.It is with some sadness and great relief that I tell you that I am leaving Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they want, but there is no way I can continue working with Liam for another day.”
What happened? Witnesses speak of a “violent fight” between the two brothers that took place in the dressing rooms. A brief but definitive altercation, which left no one time to intervene. Insults were exchanged – “You fucking cunt!“, Liam allegedly yelled at Noel as he turned on his heels, pale. Guitars were stolen, including one given to Noel Gallagher by Eric Clapton. A Gibson ES-355 guitar (the same one?) is not lost to everyone, it will be resold in 2022 after restoration for the astronomical price of 385,000 euros.
“The atmosphere was tense in the dressing rooms,” testified in The Inrocks in 2019 Laurent Truel, the boss of Truskel who was backstage during the fight. “People were predicting a clash, but not in Paris. They thought it would explode in Milan, the last date of the tour. The two brothers really couldn’t stand each other anymore.”
“I never got sick of Oasis. I got sick of him.”Noel would say in July 2011 at a press conference. According to him, the argument broke out when Liam asked for an advert for his clothing line Pretty Green to be included in their tour programme. Noel would have replied – “I didn’t think it was right that he was selling that to our fans.”. Noel already had a grudge against his brother for dozens of incidents, including a hangover that forced them to cancel a gig at the UK V Festival on the pretext that he had laryngitis. All things that Liam denies. And which hardly justify such a shattering clash.
In this duo of enemy brothers from a working-class background, the youngest Liam is the eruptive and provocative bad boy, while Noel is the serious worker and main composer.For Noel Gallagher, guitar rock is a ticket to a better life (…) while for Liam, the band is fun “, analyze Nico Prat and Benjamin Durand in their essay Oasis or the revenge of the rednecks (2021). Between them, two visions of life oppose each other and they never stop teasing, belittling and humiliating each other.
In reality, under their unifying anthems, these Wonderwall, Supersonic and other Don’t look back in angertensions were present from the first day, and the rag had already been burning for a long time between them before the breakup. At Rock en Seine, they had separate dressing rooms and each had their own tour bus. They no longer spoke to each other and traveled separately. According to Noel, that famous evening, Liam, who must have drunk more than was reasonable, “went to his dressing room and came back with a guitar that he was swinging like an axe (…) he almost tore my head off with it.”
Yes, but what dig triggered such an outburst of violence? The perpetrators of Oasis or the revenge of the rednecksbelieve they know: “Liam Gallagher reportedly told Noel that his daughter, Anaïs, 9 at the time [dont la mère est Meg Matthews]was not his”they write.
Since then, the two brothers have each released albums on their own, which have never equaled a quarter of the success they had together, and have not stopped for the last fifteen years from sending each other blows of the shovel via social networks. Until these last days when the tone suddenly changed.
According to The Mirror, Liam, 51, who was performing at the Reading Festival this weekend, played among others Half The World Awayfrom Oasis’ first album Definitely Maybe. On the microphone, he dedicated this song “to Noel fucking Gallagher”. Then, on the night of Sunday to Monday, August 26, an enigmatic meeting was launched on social networks for Tuesday, August 27 in the morning.
According to the rumour that has been growing in the UK, Noel, 57, has finally agreed to a reformation of the group following a late-night phone call.Noel and Liam are never going to be best friends, but they want to bring Oasis back for the fans. They’re not young anymore and the demand is huge. They’ve decided it’s now or never,” “a source” reportedly told the newspaper The Sun (which we don’t have to believe).
In any case, a certain French festival has been waiting for this for fifteen years.“What we have in mind, and which is the subject of hope practically every year, is a reformation. We can’t help but think about it and we will be interested.”, Sarah Schmitt, then boss of Rock en Seine (from 2017 to 2020), confided to franceinfo in 2020. The two self-proclaimed bad boys owe that to the festival.