Reason Oasis did not break America after drug-fuelled ‘worst gig of all time’
Britpop kings Oasis, who announced their long-awaited reunion earlier this week, were synonymous with success in the 1990s.
But their brand of hell-raising rock ’n’ roll, by the band’s own admission, never quite took off across the pond. Take their 1995 classic album What’s The Story Morning Glory? for example – as of August 2024 the record has gone 17x platinum in the UK, but only 4x in the US.
Liam and Noel Gallagher could probably walk unnoticed down most US highstreets, but if they tried to do their grocery shopping over here there’s a large chance they’d be mobbed. So why didn’t the Americans welcome the ‘madferit’ brothers with the same open arms that did so in the UK? There’s a lot of reasons, with the sheer size of the States ranking quite highly.
READ MORE: Oasis confirm return after 15 years with brothers reuniting for 14-date tour
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(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
People on Reddit have theorised about other reasons, with one thread stating that “Liam going off house hunting with (then wife) Patsy Kensit” on the eve of their US tour “probably didn’t help”.
“This is the biggest reason. They had momentum and this is one of the major factors that stopped that,” someone else chipped in.
“This was the US leg of the Morning Glory tour, right?” another wrote. “Horrible timing, that should have been their coronation. The stakes don’t get any bigger.”
The tour may have hammered home the band’s huge momentum they were experiencing at the time and it also might have wiped the slate clean after their “worst show of all time” in LA the year before.
(Image: Getty Images)
Oasis played a gig at the iconic Whiskey A Go Go venue and the whole thing was a disaster because the band were all reportedly high as kites.
“Someone had discovered the joys of crystal meth, which is effectively like ninja speed,” Noel Gallagher says in the 2016 documentary Supersonic. “It’s not even fun. It’s a f**king horrible drug.”
The gig was not only televised, but their biggest opportunity in the US up until that point. Many songs had to be re-started because everyone was playing at different, drug-induced tempos.
“I could see Liam going down to one of the amps throughout the gig,” said guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, “and he was just snorting lines of crystal meth onstage.”
(Image: Youtube)
Although they would eventually return to bigger and better things in America, the gig was a serious blip and they had to cancel their next nine shows in the States as a result.
Tickets for Oasis’ 2025 reunion tour go on sale at 9AM on Saturday, with the expectation being they will “sell out in three minutes”.
Commenting on the comeback the siblings announced: “The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised.”
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