LIVE FOREVER: THE RISE, FALL AND RESURRECTION OF OASIS by John Robb (HarperNorth £22, 432pp)
For most of us, getting hit over the head with a hammer would be an utterly negative experience. For Liam Gallagher, it was the making of him.
As a young teenager he had no interest in music, dismissing it as ‘for weirdos’.
Then he was involved in a fight outside school and one of his assailants attacked him with a hammer.
‘I wake up in hospital; I’ve got a load of stitches in my head. But after that, I believe, I started hearing music, man,’ he told an interviewer in 2017.
‘Then in the weeks after, I think it was Madonna’s Like A Virgin. I heard it and thought, “That’s a f***ing tune that, man”. It’s like when people wake up from comas and speak Japanese.’
The Oasis frontman and his older brother Noel, the band’s lead guitarist and writer of most of their best songs, have never been less than entertaining – so music journalist John Robb has plenty of material to work with in his book about them, rushed out in time for the reunited rockers’ tour which begins in Cardiff on July 4.
The Gallaghers grew up on a council estate in Manchester. Their mother, Peggy, had left their father, an abusive heavy drinker, and taken her three boys – Liam, Noel and their older brother Paul – with her.
Liam and Noel shared a bedroom. They weren’t bad lads but they were no angels either. There were drugs and fights. They weren’t keen on school but they were clever and quick-witted.
Noel, who had long been interested in music and had taught himself to play guitar, drifted into a job for the Oldham band the Inspiral Carpets. He was a roadie but also worked in their office and sat in on meetings. It gave him an insight into how the music business worked.
When Liam decided shortly after the hammer incident that he wanted to be a rock ’n’ roll singer, he insinuated himself into a local outfit called the Rain and got his brother on board.
Family Affair: Noel (left) and Liam (second from right) with their brother Paul (middle) and mother Peggy
They changed the band’s name and started gigging around Manchester and beyond. Both Noel and Liam had an unshakeable belief that Oasis, as they were now called, was destined for greatness.
The brothers occasionally worked for a valeting company that cleaned the cars of Manchester United players. The firm’s owner recalls Liam telling David Beckham that the music he had in his car was rubbish and that Oasis were going to be the biggest band in the world.
They got their break in 1993 when they played at a Glasgow venue and record label boss Alan McGee just happened to be there. He loved what he heard, signed them and they were off and running.
Yet the story of what happened when they had their first gig outside of the UK typifies the early years.
They were supporting The Verve in Amsterdam. Most of the band got drunk on the ferry, fights broke out, and on arrival in Holland, they were all deported apart from Noel who had spent the night in his cabin.
After the Rain: Liam and Noel joined a local Manchester band, The Rain, renaming it Oasis
Noel rang McGee with what he thought was bad news, but the publicity-savvy music mogul was delighted. ‘F*****g brilliant,’ he exclaimed. ‘Normally we have to make up stories like that every day.’
McGee observed of his signings that: ‘Not only did they write great songs but they wrote great headlines. There was no filter with the way they spoke and the way they behaved.’
Trouble seemed to follow them and they embraced it. They were cocky and aggressive but they had the tunes to back it up.
Noel was a brilliant songwriter and couldn’t stop churning out earworms. In just a few years, anthems such as Live Forever, Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back In Anger and Champagne Supernova made Oasis a stadium-shaking supergroup whose music defined a cultural era.
They would eventually become one of the most successful rock bands ever and have eight No.1 albums.
But the brothers – and although there were three other members, the Gallaghers were Oasis – had a love-hate relationship that was forever erupting and threatening to tear the band apart.
Before what was their last tour, Noel gave an interview in which he said: ‘I don’t like Liam, he’s rude, arrogant, intimidating and lazy. He’s the angriest man you’ll ever meet. He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.’
When the guitarist finally quit in August 2009, after one backstage brawl too many, no one was terribly shocked.
Robb, who had an exclusive interview with Noel for this book, is good on the band’s beginnings, and he covers all the topics you’d expect –the rivalry with Blur, Noel’s visit to meet then prime minister Tony Blair in Downing Street, the drugs and so on.
He also gives chapter and verse on what every song sounds like (the expression ‘wall of sound’ appears 23 times).
However, psychological insight is not his forte. I finished the book with little real sense of what makes the brothers tick or why their relationship is as it is.
And the book is far less detailed on the later years and has nothing to say about the Gallaghers’ recent reconciliation.
Don’t look back in anger: The brothers have reunited for their 2025 arena tour beginning 4th July
Because after years of sniping at each other in interviews and on social media, the pair have buried the hatchet and reformed
Oasis to play some shows in the UK and Ireland before heading off for Canada, the United States, South America and elsewhere.
The news, which was announced last year, prompted an unusual outpouring of emotion.
Oasis fans were genuinely delighted not just that they had the opportunity to see the band but that the brothers, who are now aged 52 and 58, had made up.
What prompted the reconciliation? Was Liam hit on the head with a hammer again?
To a fan who asked him on social media platform X (formerly Twitter)how it felt to be back with Noel and singing the songs that millions love, he said: ‘You know what, it’s spiritual, but I can’t help think about all those wasted years what a waste of PRECIOUS time.’
