Winding and blinding: how the Gallaghers hit peak rock

Music journalist Paolo Hewitt spent two years partying with Oasis as they rose to supersonic stardom so he has insight into why they split and why they have reunited 16 years later

- Paolo Hewitt

It’s 21 August 1997. The death of Oasis has arrived. Be Here Now, the band’s third album, is released. More than 400,000 copies are sold in a day. It was the fastest-selling album in the UK. Ever. Then come the reviews. All positive. Five stars everywhere. Oasis dominate the media. Oasis dominate the airwaves. Oasis dominate the country.

Yet Oasis are about to die. I would like to say I saw their death approaching and gave out warnings. I was certainly in a position to do so. I had befriended Noel, had seen his band go from playing the Kentish Town Forum to undertaking worldwide stadium tours. I had spent two years, laughing, partying, but always witnessing and chronicling, the band’s rapid and stupendous rise.

And stupendous is the correct adjective to deploy when writing about Oasis. In one year, they went from playing a quarter-filled pub in Yorkshire, to selling out the Utilita Arena Stadium in Sheffield. One year. Another 12 months after that they had two million people trying to score tickets to see them at Knebworth. Unheard of. And why? Because Oasis had it all.

Some context. For years, UK rock music had been in the doldrums. No glamour, no excitement. The best it could offer was shoegazing. The most interesting bands - The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays - all had links to the hip-hop and acid-house scenes, not rock ones.

Not Oasis. They played loud guitars and openly worshipped at the Mount Rushmore of rock - The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, with The Jam and The Smiths thrown in for good measure. Lyrically, Noel always opted for the easiest of rhymes. In his canon, all the roads are winding, all the lights are blinding.