Tony McCarroll reveals leaving Oasis ‘greatest mistake of my life’

Original Oasis drummer Tony McCarroll has admitted leaving Oasis was ‘probably the biggest mistake of my life’ as he hinted he is keen to rejoin them on their £400million reunion tour.

The 53-year-old founding member of the group made the confession after being honoured with a blue plaque in the Irish village of Kinnitty, his mother’s birthplace and where he himself spent time as a boy.

McCarroll is often dubbed ‘the forgotten man of Oasis’ after constant rows with Noel Gallagher, who felt his drumming wasn’t good enough, saw him quit the band in 1995 as they were about to stage their meteoritic rise.

What followed was a bitter rift that ended with McCarroll suing Noel in the High Court, claiming he was owed £15 million in royalties — but eventually settling for £550,000.

Speaking at a Q&A after the plaque unveiling at the parish hall in Kinnitty, County Offaly, he recalled his fiery clash — one of many — with songwriter and guitarist Noel on stage in Paris that led to him being ousted.

He told host John McFadden: ‘There was tension in the band — not only with me. The band was a tough place to be sometimes.

‘I remember the Paris gig, drinking was involved, I ended up arguing with someone in the room next door to Noel and the next day Noel said, in front of the sound crew and everyone, ‘don’t ever keep me awake at night or I’ll sack you’.

‘I’d had enough. I’d had enough of the poking each other and this, that and the other, so I swept the kit out the way and went up to Noel — right up to his face — and said: ‘Don’t you ever talk to me like that.’

‘It was probably the biggest mistake of life.’

McCarroll was replaced soon afterwards by Alan White who remained with the band until 2004. Oasis split five years later when Noel and Liam fell out for the last time following a heated row before they were due to perform at a French rock festival.

But last Tuesday the band confirmed they were getting back together after 15 years for a summer tour next year performing at Manchester’s Heaton Park, Wembley Stadium and in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Dublin.

McCarroll said the ‘energy’ between the Gallagher brothers was what drove the band.

He said: ‘I was the quiet one at the back, my stress was taking it out on the kit, but them two were fronting the band, from 8 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock at night, they were doing interviews, promotions, bringing the band to the next level.

‘They were big personalities but the stress they must have endured…we felt that backstage – we’d be like ‘oh god they’re arguing again.’

‘But it was essential because they were the energy in that band.

‘In many ways we needed each other, it was five lads against the world, that s how we saw it at the time.

‘Now this big reunion…will they get there? I don’t know. Maybe they’ll put them on separate buses.’

In an exclusive interview with the MailOnline over the weekend, McCarroll said that he has yet to be approached by Noel or Liam Gallagher to take part in the 17-shows next July and August.

However, at the end of the Q&A session he appeared to suggest he was keen on a reunion with his bandmates.

Local Councillor John Clendennen, who helped organise the event, told the audience: ‘We all know that a couple of men from County Mayo (the Gallagher brothers) will be playing Croke Park in Dublin next year and I hope that a man from County Offaly will be joining them’. 

A smiling McCarroll answered ‘me too’ on the microphone prompting loud cheers.

More than 100 people flocked to Kinnitty Parish Hall to see McCarroll unveil the plaque at the site of his first rehearsed public performance — a 1980 school nativity in which he played drums.

Oasis fans shelled out 20Euros for the Q&A which took place in the hall immediately afterwards.

Poking fun at the chaos surrounding Oasis’ much-anticipated reunion tour next year which has seen ticket websites crash under unprecedented demand, Councillor Clendennen, joked: ‘We came up with the concept in early 2019 to acknowledge 25 years since the Definitely Maybe album and here we are five years later acknowledging 30-years.

‘We put it on ice, but little did we think that we’d have this event on the day that tickets for Oasis’ reunion tour would go on sale. We couldn’t have picked a better day.

‘Had we wanted to we could have sold 500 more tickets…but our website didn’t crash once!’

Ticketmaster went down yesterday morning on the opening day of sales after the site was flooded with hundreds of thousands of Oasis fans desperately trying to buy tickets.

The platform is the main provider selling the hotly-anticipated tickets but users reported constant crashes as thousands of fans were unable to access the queue.

Ironically, a question on the pre-sale ballot to get tickets was who was Oasis’ original drummer?

McCarroll travelled to Kinnitty, in the centre of Ireland, last week. The village is where his mother Bridie hails from and where he himself spent two-years as a boy. He still has family here in abundance.

His blue plaque – which commemorates his time with Oasis and hails the band’s debut album that he performed on — Definitely Maybe —has been fixed to the front of the village’s parish hall.

His father moved the family to Kinnitty, which is surrounded by the beautiful Slieve Bloom mountains, for work between 1979 and 1981 when they returned home to Levenshulme in Manchester.

While in Ireland he attended the Kinnitty National School and played for the local Hurling club.

Proud mother Bridie was among family who attended the unveiling yesterday evening along with McCarroll’s wife Sue and their daughter Gemma.

Bridie said: ‘I remember the nativity, he was here for a few years when he was a young boy. I’m so very proud of him. It’s a proud moment for the family.’

Speaking about the plaque McCarroll said: ‘It’s a huge honour for me. I’ve been coming here since I was a baby. I spent two years here from when I was about eight or nine-year’s old.

‘When I was aged ten, a drum kit was set up on the right-hand side of the local parish hall for a nativity. I was playing with a guy called Seamus Bradley, who had a tin whistle, so we must have sounded ridiculous.

‘We were probably playing things like Jingle Bells and Silent Night but in my head it was brilliant.’

McCarroll said the band had a dream of becoming successful, they worked hard, rehearsed frequently and managed to achieve their dream.  

When asked about fans’ frustration over the prices for reunion tour tickets, McCarroll agreed they were expensive and wondered if it was even down to the band.

He told a local newspaper: ‘I’ve never seen prices like that. It isn’t any of my business I suppose, but between promoters, this, that and the other, who knows what’s going on behind the scenes.’

An estimated 14million people desperately vied to secure their spots at the gigs yesterday with many hitting out at Ticketmaster over its ‘disgusting’ ‘In Demand’ prices reaching as high as £350, plus fees. 

Within minutes of the sale going live, tickets were being resold for up to £10,000 by greedy touts. 

Politicians accused Ticketmaster of ‘fleecing’ fans with its dynamic pricing, and Irish MEP Regina Doherty called for an investigation into the pricing structure for tickets sold for the two Oasis gigs at Croke Park in Dublin.

McCarroll said he had a feeling ‘there’s going to be some amazing bands on that line-up’ and believes the band is really on the side of fans when it comes to pricing.

‘When tickets roll onto certain websites for triple, six times or more, I don’t think that’s fair. There really should be some control over that,’ McCarroll added. 

 As of this morning, prices for tickets on the reselling website are still listed in the thousands, with the lowest being £761 and the highest £9,000. 

Throughout the morning and the afternoon devotees fought to give themselves the best chance of seeing Noel and Liam Gallagher live 15 years after the warring brothers split.

Many posted pictures of their ‘ticket stations’ as they each used several laptops, iPads and mobiles.

Others — who managed to get through to buy their tickets — raged after various sites hiked up their prices because the passes were ‘in demand’.

Fans have called for the boycott of Viagogo as greedy resellers began trying to flog reunion tour tickets for almost £7000.

Tickets for Oasis’s upcoming reunion tour were meant to start at £74.25 for seated tickets at their Wembley shows, with the most expensive ticket being a £506.25 pre-show party, exhibition and seated ticket package.

Standing tickets were originally listed from £151.25, and seated from £74.25 in London – but apparent screenshots from the Ticketmaster website offering In Demand standing tickets for 415.50 euros each, plus fees, equivalent to around £350.

A floor standing ticket for Oasis at Wembley in July 2009 priced at £38.10.

On Sunday morning, the reselling website Viagogo was listing tickets for the Wembley July 25 gig for between £761 and £5,369.

In Cardiff, original tickets were said to cost £73, but some X users posted screenshots of tickets costing £356 to £438.

On Viagogo, tickets for the show at the Principality Stadium on July 4 are being sold for between £817 and £2,969.

In the band’s home city of Manchester, tickets were meant to start from £148.50, with only standing available alongside a number of hospitality and luxury offerings.

But screenshots posted on X of the Ticketmaster website shows Standing Tickets costing £355.

Meanwhile, for the Manchester July 11 gig, tickets on Viagogo cost between £687 and £6,710 – with VIP tickets being a whopping £9,041.

Some Oasis ticket hopefuls also reported being ‘suspended’ by Ticketmaster UK and Ireland after it accused them of being ‘bots’.