The UK albums chart has just celebrated its 70th anniversary, and the body that looks after that venerable old institution – The Official Charts Company – has revealed what have been the biggest albums in all that time.

The biggest studio album of the last 70 years – in the UK at least – is Oasis's (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, which to date has sold 6.2 million copies.

If this sounds quite low, remember that this is just UK sales. Worldwide, the album has shifted over 22 million copies.

Ahead of Oasis are two unstoppable greatest hits juggernauts – Abba Gold (7.1 million copies) and the biggest overall album, Queen’s Greatest Hits (7.8 million). Released in 1981, the latter has sold over 25 million worldwide, and even in an era when the greatest hits package seems increasingly redundant, still keeps selling.

The biggest selling album released in the 21st Century is Adele’s 21, which comes in fourth with 5.7 million copies. The rest of the Top Ten is pretty much as you’d expect: in descending order – Sgt Pepper, Rumours, Dark Side Of The Moon, Thriller, Legend by Bob Marley and Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms.

The Official Charts Company has issued a statement together with this list. Becca Monahan and Chris Austin, the interim Co-Managing Directors of the body, said: "Huge congratulations to Oasis, as the incomparable (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? is officially crowned the UK’s biggest studio album of all time. Three decades on, its scale and influence remain extraordinary - a defining British record that continues to unite generations, fill stadiums and soundtrack lives.

"Celebrating 70 years of the Official Albums Chart offers a unique opportunity to honour the album’s enduring place at the heart of music culture. The way fans discover and enjoy music may be ever-changing, but the album remains the ultimate expression of an artist’s creativity, ambition and vision.”

So what was the very first chart topper, back in 1956? Well, it was a bona fide classic – Sinatra’s Songs For Swingin’ Lovers. The rest of the Top 5 (and it was only a Top 5 back then) consisted of the soundtracks to Rodgers And Hammerstein’s Carousel and Oklahoma and live recordings of Mel Torme and Louis Armstrong. Songs For Swingin’ Lovers was the only one of those five that was designed to be an artistic statement in its own right, and it pointed the way towards the future.

Whether the album format has much of a future in 2026 is another question entirely. But its demise has been predicted for quite some time now (at least since the turn of the century). Despite that, artists seem to keep on making them. And – for the moment - we keep on buying them.

Wonderwall very much looks like it has become the default England anthem for this year’s World Cup, and Noel Gallagher is very much behind it. As you’d expect, of course.

“Wonderwall belongs to the people, and it was a magical moment between the people and the players,” the guitarist has told The Sun. “Best of luck to everyone who’s made the trip out there.”

At the conclusion of last Wednesday’s match against Croatia (which England won 4-2), the players came to the side of the pitch to applaud the fans, who were belting out the Britpop-era megahit.

Declan Rice has confirmed it was a bit of a moment: “On the pitch after the game and we were just connecting with the fans, and they were singing. That was special. Being in Dallas, singing Wonderwall. There’s nothing like that first time.”

And captain Harry Kane has described it as “one of my favourite ever moments in an England shirt, especially at a major tournament. It’s the emotional connection with the fans, we know how much it means to them.

In the footage, one or two like Jude Bellingham can even be seen mouthing along to the words. Bellingham, of course, like most of the squad, wasn’t even born when Wonderwall was first released in October 1995. But somehow this slightly sombre song, written in a minor key, has genuinely become an anthem that spans generations, every bit as ubiquitous and potent as Hey Jude.

Some have been perplexed by its adoption as a football song. Back in 2018, responding to reports that Manchester City had started to walk on to it, Liam Gallagher said: “Would you not prefer Rock And Roll Star? Wonderwall’s a bit ‘end of the night, my bird’s left me’ and all that kind of thing. It doesn’t strike me as something you play before the derby.”

Liam’s absolutely right, of course. But as Noel pointed out, it belongs to the people now, and they’ll decide how they want to use it.

Worldwide, it’s sold over 10 million copies and in the UK alone has gone eight times platinum. After Wham!’s Last Christmas finally reached the top a few years back, it’s now the biggest-selling single not to reach Number One in the UK. Could that change if England go deep into the tournament? Watch this space...

We knew that the Gallagher brothers earned a considerable amount from last year’s big Oasis reunion tour. But it appears that it was enough to make them a new entry in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List.

Yes, apparently Liam and Noel amassed some £375 million for the 41 shows they perform between July and November 2025. We’re not sure where exactly they will be on the list – it’s not published until Sunday – but it’s apparently somewhere in the Top 350.

Amongst the hedge fund owners, football club owners and tech tycoons, there will no doubt be some familiar faces from the world of music. Last year Sir Paul McCartney was at Number 151 – he’s currently worth £1.025 billion. Go down a little further and you’d find Sir Elton John at 283, worth £475 million. Meanwhile Mick Jagger and Keith Richards shared Number 295 – they both have wealth to the tune of £440 million, and Simon Cowell was at Number 301 – he increased his wealth to £430 million last year.

And lest you think that extreme wealth in music is the preserve of the elite from the golden age of rock and pop, last year Ed Sheeran re-entered at 333. He was worth £370 million.

Overall, there are twenty fewer billionaires in the UK than four years ago, though the list’s compiler, Robert Watts, suggested there is a simple reason for that: “Many foreign billionaires who have been living in the UK have also dropped out because they have moved away. We have also seen a sharp rise in the number of British nationals now resident in Dubai, Switzerland and Monaco. As UK nationals these people remain on our Rich List - wherever they now live.”

“Over the years our research has told us a lot about our country, charting the way a generation of largely self-made entrepreneurs overtook the old money of the landed gentry.”

Anyway, to find out exactly where the Gallaghers (and others) are in the chart, pick up a copy of the Sunday Times this weekend or head over to https://www.thetimes.com/sunday-times-rich-list

The 2026 inductees for the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame have been announced and they include a record six British acts, including two who have previously dismissed the institution in varying shades of annoyance.

So, in no particular order those names are: Billy Idol, Sade, Phil Collins, Wu Tang Clan, Joy Division/ New Order, Luther Vandross, Iron Maiden and Oasis.

You will have no doubt clocked those last two names and raised your eyebrows. Let’s start with Oasis. Back in 2024 when the band were first nominated, Liam Gallagher dismissed the whole thing on Twitter/ X with his trademark wit: “Fuck the Rock n Roll hall of fame its full of BUMBACLARTS...You know it I don’t need some wank award by some geriatric in a cowboy hat.”

Now, however, his tune has changed somewhat. Liam greeted his induction yesterday in a manner of a meek schoolboy coming up to receive a prize: "I wanna thank all the people who voted for us it's a real honour ever since I was a little kid and singing in the shower I'd dream about 1 day being in the RnR hall of tame it's true what they say anything is possible if you have a dream LG x."

Meanwhile Iron Maiden have finally been inducted by the Hall Of Fame, after just, you know, being arguably the world’s biggest metal band of the last four decades. Whether they’ll turn up in person to the ceremony in November is very much doubtful. Asked back in 2018 whilst he was on a speaking tour of Australia, about the institution’s alleged snubbing of Maiden, Bruce Dickinson described the Hall Of Fame as “an utter and complete load of bollocks, to be honest with you… It’s run by a bunch of sanctimonious bloody Americans who wouldn’t know rock ‘n’ roll if it hit them in the face. They need to stop taking Prozac and start drinking fucking beer.”

When asked by the Daily Telegraph five years later, Dickinson hadn’t changed his mind, saying: "I don't want to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, because we're not dead yet!"

(Spare a thought for the one inductee who doesn’t have a choice in the matter: poor Luther Vandross, who is dead, having passed away back in July 2005.)

However, Billy Idol was more positive about his induction, describing it to Billboard as: “just icing on the cake, just... wow, what an honour! I almost can't put it into words. To be able to have your peers vote you in and that, it's pretty special."

Phil Collins, too, sounded made up, saying on Instagram: "Obviously I'm pleased and honoured to be inducted. It wraps up what has been a wonderful life in music."

This year’s Hall Of Fame ceremony is already in the calendar for Saturday 14 November at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles.

Noel Gallagher has broken cover to address the fact that he’ll be presented with the Songwriter Of The Year award at this month’s Brits – despite not having released a new record for nearly three years.

The Oasis guitarist was interviewed on TalkSPORT and, whilst the conversation centred on football and Manchester City’s chances of winning the Premier League in particular, he did suggest a reason why he has been given the honour, saying: “If I’m being honest right, I just think they were desperate to get somebody from Oasis up there because it’s from Manchester… that’s what I think. Our kid (Liam) was like ‘I’m not going’ so I was like ‘well I’ll have to go, I suppose.’

“I haven’t written a song for two years. I’m not sure how I’ve got away with that one but I’ll take it.”

The Brits' organisers have justified it, saying that he had “permeated the fabric of British culture for over 30 years” with songs that “continue to resonate with audiences around the world like no other.”

When asked whether he thought he deserved it, Gallagher Sr said: “Well, I think the Brits is all based on record sales, and I’m not sure there was another single songwriter that sold… I mean, we sold a million records last year. Didn’t even get off the couch and I’m not sure there’s a songwriter that can match that.”

“But you know, if anybody’s got a problem with it, meet me there,” he continued. “We’ll have it out on the red carpet. If any of those wet wipes songwriting teams, all 11 of them, want to write a song between the lot of them, want to have it out on the red carpet, I’m there.”

The interview didn’t touch on the subject fans will be ravenous to know – whether we’ll see further Oasis activity in the short to medium term – though Noel did let slip that “I’m in the studio now – I better put something out.”

The Brits takes place on Saturday 28 February, in Manchester – as Noel pointed out – at the Co-Op Live Arena.

What is it?

When it comes to music history, few places evoke as much reverence as Abbey Road Studios. From the Beatles’ genre-defining albums and the atmospheric masterpieces of Pink Floyd to chart-topping works from Oasis to countless movie scores, this hallowed ground in London is a living, breathing monument to decades of sonic innovation and continues to operate as one of the world’s best recording studios to this day. So when Gretsch announced it would be the provider of the studio’s first-ever instrument collaboration, you’re damn right we sat up and took notice.

Introducing the Gretsch Limited Edition Abbey Road Studiomatic, officially, the RS201 Studiomatic. As expected, this is a semi-hollow that literally bakes Abbey Road’s technological magic right into its DNA. For the first time ever, Abbey Road has partnered with a guitar maker, and the result is an instrument that promises to deliver studio-grade sound before your signal even hits a single pedal, amp, or audio interface.

The centrepiece is an all-new electronic circuit inspired by EMI’s legendary Rumble filter, originally designed in the 1950s to eliminate unwanted low-end rumble from historic recordings. Now, that filtering power is at your fingertips, giving players unprecedented control to sculpt a polished, record-ready tone straight out of the guitar.

But the Studiomatic doesn’t stop at groundbreaking electronics. Its custom-wound Filter’Tron pickups are described by Abbey Road’s own engineers as having “a real, beautiful attack.” The 2.25” deep maple body features parallel bracing for stability and resonance, while a C-profile maple neck and a bound ebony fingerboard with Neo-Classic Thumbnail inlays make for a smooth, stylish ride up and down the fretboard.

Add in an Adjusto-Matic bridge on an ebony plate, die-cast locking tuners, a complementary set of strap locks, and a striking Abbey Road logo on the headstock, all dressed in a suitably decadent gold finish, and you get a very well-specified guitar indeed.

To seal the deal, the guitar is bundled with a lush burgundy case that is meant to evoke the iconic colour found on everything from the chairs to the doors throughout the studio. The light blue lining of the case is a nod to the underpaint of the doors seen through decades of wear and tear.

There is no question that Abbey Road knows a thing or two about producing timeless music, and Gretsch has the guitar-making down, but will it all come together to make an exceptional instrument that’s more than the sum of its parts? Well, let’s find out.

Specs

• Launch price: $1,579 | £1,249 | €1289
• Made: China
• Type: Hollowbody electric guitar
• Body: Laminated maple
• Neck: Maple, Classic "C"
• Fingerboard: Ebony
• Scale length: 24.6" (625 mm)
• Nut/width: Graph Tech TUSQ, 1.6875" (42.86 mm)
• Frets: 22 Medium Jumbo
• Hardware: Adjusto-Matic bridge, Bigsby B60 V-Cutout, Die-Cast Sealed Locking Tuners, G-Arrow control knobs
• Electrics: Custom Filter’Tron, 2-Position Rumble Filter
• Weight: 7.5lbs/ 3.4 kg
• Left-handed options: No
• Finishes: Classic Walnut Stain
• Cases: Custom hardshell case and exclusive case candy items included
• Contact: Gretsch Guitars

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

From the moment you lay eyes on the Gretsch Abbey Road Studiomatic, it’s clear this is a guitar with presence and prestige. The visually striking burgundy case not only offers robust protection, but also sets the tone for what’s inside, channelling the storied atmosphere of Abbey Road itself - think of it as your own ticket to ride into musical history. The attention to detail is immediately apparent, with the case’s light blue lining nodding to the underpaint of those legendary Abbey Road doors.

Once you open the case, the guitar itself makes a stunning first impression. The classic Walnut finish is deep, rich, and beautifully applied, highlighting the wood grain and shimmering under studio spotlights. Pair that with the guilded gold hardware, and you’ve got a guitar dripping with vintage mojo.

Every element feels intentional and expertly executed, from the bound ebony fingerboard with its sharp Neo-Classic Thumbnail inlays to the V-Cutout Bigsby B60.

More importantly, the build quality lives up to the impressive visuals. The guitar arrives impeccably set up, with low, buzz-free action and spot-on intonation. Hardware feels solid and reassuring, from the Bigsby vibrato to the strap locks, and the parallel-braced maple body is both resonant and sturdy.

It’s the kind of instrument that feels ready for the studio - or the stage - without a single tweak. A lot like Abbey Road itself, the Studiomatic feels built to stand the test of time, blending classic looks, premium craftsmanship, and a little studio magic in every detail.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★½

Thankfully, the Gretsch Abbey Road Studiomatic isn’t just a guitar that looks the part; it absolutely delivers when it comes to playability. One of the first things you notice when picking it up is the exceptionally comfortable neck. Gretsch opted for a classic C-profile that feels just right in the hand: not too chunky for fast lead lines, but substantial enough to anchor big chords and complex fingerings. The smooth-bound ebony fingerboard and well-dressed frets add to the premium feel, gliding under your fingers whether you’re playing up high or digging in for rhythm work.

The RS201 really reminds me of the ever-popular Electromatic G5422TG. Yes, they differ in many ways, from the Trestle Block bracing of the G5422TG to Parallel Tone Bars of the Abbey Road model, as well as the Studiomatic sporting an ebony 'board while the Electromatic gets the less desirable laurel, but both share the same “classic-C” neck profile, 12" fingerboard radius, 24.6" scale length, and medium jumbo frets. So purely from a feel point of view, these models feel incredibly similar - dare I say, identical.

A big playability plus on the Studiomatic is its factory setup with 10-gauge strings. Gretsch’s choice here makes a lot of sense, for many players, 10s hit that sweet spot between ease of bending and solid rhythmic foundation. To me, the tension feels familiar and welcoming, whether you’re a blues bender, a jazzy chorder, or a rock strummer. Unlike the new Synchromatic Falcon, which ships with heavier 11s and can feel a bit stiff for some players right out of the box, the Studiomatic’s 10s offer a more universal playing experience.

The action is set low and pretty even, measuring around 1.4mm on the high E string and 1.6mm on the low E string, at the first fret, with no fret buzz or dead spots. It makes for effortless playability up and down the neck. The parallel-braced maple body adds to the comfort, being lightweight and perfectly balanced whether you’re playing seated or standing. The cutaway gives easy access to the upper frets, inviting you to explore the entire range of the instrument.

As expected, the Bigsby vibrato moves smoothly for subtle shimmers or expressive dives, but does take some breaking in. For the first few sessions, it has a tendency to throw the guitar out of tune, but if you exercise some patience, you’ll be rewarded with a stable tuning eventually.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

When it comes to tone, the Gretsch Abbey Road Studiomatic is anything but ordinary. This guitar was created to deliver studio-grade sound at your fingertips, and much of that magic comes down to its unique electronics - a collaboration between Gretsch and the legendary engineers at Abbey Road Studios themselves.

At the heart of the Studiomatic’s sonic identity lies its groundbreaking rumble circuit, inspired by the EMI-designed low-frequency filter used at Abbey Road since the 1950s. Originally developed to eliminate unwanted subsonic noise from classic recordings- think rumble from London’s underground trains or the thump of heavy footsteps on studio floors - this circuit has been reimagined for guitar, giving players direct access to Abbey Road’s signature clarity and polish.

The rumble circuit is more than a mere high-pass filter. It’s a dual-mode system, selectable via an elegant rotary switch on the upper bout. Each mode subtly reshapes the instrument’s low-frequency response, allowing you to tailor your tone, whether you’re after vintage jangle, focused punch, or full-bodied warmth.

With the circuit bypassed, the sound is completely open and natural. Here, the Studiomatic’s custom Filter’Tron pickups shine, delivering classic Gretsch chime and bite with a vibrant midrange and crisp top end and an almost boomy low end. This setting is full of dynamic response, the kind of sound that lets your picking nuances and fingerstyle details ring out, perfect for everything from Beatles-style clean arpeggios to more modern, articulate lead work.

Switch to the second mode, and the rumble circuit engages Abbey Road’s famous 100Hz high-pass filter. This is where the magic really happens. The low end tightens up, eliminating any muddiness and pushing your sound forward in a mix. Chords become more defined, bass frequencies are controlled, and every note retains clarity. It is particularly evident when it was introduced to my favourite Big Muff fuzz pedal. It’s the secret weapon for recording guitar tracks that sit perfectly in a dense mix, just like the studio greats did. You’ll notice how this mode lets your playing cut through, with a sense of air and detail.

The second mode shifts the filter to a more pronounced setting, rolling off even more low-end for a truly vintage tone. This is the setting for those classic 1960s pop and rock tones, where every strum feels crisp. It’s ideal for layering guitars in the studio, preventing low-frequency buildup, and giving each part its own space. It’s worth noting that on its own, this setting sounds a little weak and some may even say a little lacklustre, but add it to a full-band mix and it makes sense. While it’s fun to have a bold, bass-heavy tone at home when you’re practicing, in a recording scenario, that extra low end tends to muddy up the mix, masking the bass guitar and kick drum.

Beyond the electronics, the custom-wound Filter’Tron pickups are remarkable in their own right. Voiced in collaboration with Abbey Road’s engineers, they possess a lively attack and a sweet, singing sustain. Clean tones are glassy and three-dimensional, with just enough bite to stay present without ever sounding too harsh. Roll back the volume or tone controls, and the sound mellows beautifully, staying musical and expressive across the entire range.

Add some overdrive, and the Studiomatic roars to life. The pickups retain their character, never becoming muddy or thumpy, while the rumble circuit keeps your low end in check. I'd say this is a guitar that’s equally at home on jangly pop, bluesy riffing, or even harder rock.

Verdict

Abbey Road may have waited decades to put its legendary name to a physical instrument, but I’d argue that it was well worth the wait. To me, the Abbey Road Studiomatic RS201 isn’t just a collection of cool features; it’s a tool designed to make your recorded guitar sound better, right out of the box.

In the studio, it means less time fighting EQ and more time making music. On stage, it means a consistent, polished sound no matter what amp or pedalboard you’re using. And for home recording enthusiasts, it offers a taste of Abbey Road’s legendary studio wizardry in a package you can actually afford.

In short, the sound of the Abbey Road Studiomatic is a bridge between past and present, combining Gretsch’s classic character with Abbey Road’s relentless pursuit of sonic excellence – d’you know what I mean?

MusicRadar's verdict: This guitar is a love letter to one of the most famous recording studios of all time. Every detail feels thoughtfully designed, and thankfully, it has the playability and sound to match. Okay, most people won't need the more extreme setting of the onboard Rumble circuit, but it will certainly come in handy for some.

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Their reunion tour has been one of the stories of the year but up until now, we’ve heard little from inside the Oasis camp, beyond Liam’s tweets, which, though entertaining, should be taken with a liberal dose of salt.

Now Gem Archer, who played rhythm guitar throughout the tour, has broken cover and given an interview with Guitar World.

“It’s the weirdest thing,” Archer told the magazine. “It’s all a blur. We’ve all said that we won’t know what this was ‘till next year. When all the wheels stop spinning, you know, there’s just so much to take on board. It really was a bit of a whirlwind, you know?”

As for the future and the possibility of more Oasis shows, Archer said that he didn’t know “anything about what’s coming up”. However, he did add: “Anything could happen, which could include nothing. But this was quite a thing… if stuff was happening, I think I might already know about it, if you know what I mean? It’s not something you just flick on.”

The only chink of light he was able to open on the subject was this: “Noel has said, ‘No rest for the immensely talented,’ so take that how you want”.

Meanwhile in Liam land (Twitter/X), the singer has appeared to rule out any further Oasis activity until 2027. When one fan asked him about shows next year, he posted: “We’re not doing anything in 2026 sorry.”

Then, when another asked about the possibility of doing Knebworth once more, he shot back with: “Nothing going on next year except the WC (World Cup).” When one further fan brought up the odds that William Hill were offering on Oasis playing Knebworth in 2026 (2-1 on, apparently), the frontman shut down the subject with an unequivocal: “ITS NOT HAPPENING”.

Later on, when asked if he had anything to do today, Liam said “I don’t (have) snizzle to do until 2027 I mean happy Christmas.”

As Gem Archer said, take that how you want.

Jon Bon Jovi has said that he went to see Oasis a couple of months back and that he “enjoyed it immensely.”

The singer was appearing on Chris Evans’ Virgin Radio Breakfast Show, and confirmed that he attended one of the band’s two gigs at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. He said that he needed to “smell a rock and roll band. I needed to be out there to see what a rock band looks like on a stage again.”

Interestingly, he heaped praise on Noel’s guitar playing: “The guitar tones alone were worth the price of admission, and they both sang great. And the songs that the Americans know – and you gotta remember they’re not as well known in America. The general punter knows a third of the songs - the audiences ate it up. They loved it.”

“People really want (to see) a rock band again,” he told Evans. “No dancers, no tricks, no loops, no recorded stuff – they wanted to hear a rock band.”

Oasis played five stadium dates in the States in August and September, in New Jersey, Los Angeles and Chicago. Notoriously, during the band’s 90s heyday the US was the one place that proved resistant to the Gallaghers’ charms. But it seems that rather than ‘break’ America in one fail swoop (like their idols, The Beatles) Oasis have ended up doing it by stealth – all five gigs sold out with ease.

The band are now nearing the end of the reunion tour – they have just five gigs left in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. And after that? We’ll no doubt hear the Gallaghers’ plans for ‘26 in the fullness of time...

Just hours after Gibson unveiled the Noel Gallagher Les Paul Standard, a production line US-built version of the Oasis icon’s P-90 equipped Custom Shop model – y’know, the most talked about guitar of 2025 – Epiphone anted up with signature guitars for Gallagher’s six-string lieutenants, Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Gem Archer.

Longtime Oasis fans will recognise Bonehead’s Riviera. Finished in Dark Tobacco Sunburst, with that ‘burst beautifully applied to the neck, this Epiphone guitar is a replica of his mid ‘80s semi-hollow that Bonehead wielded in the early days. He tracked their debut album Definitely Maybe with it. He toured with it. And the Riviera survived all the way to this day.

“Epiphone Rivieras have been with me from the early rehearsals at the Boardwalk in Manchester all the way up to those historic shows at Knebworth and on into Liam’s solo career,” says Bonehead. “I’m still playing my original 1984 guitar on the Oasis 2025 tour, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’m excited to bring this new guitar to audiences who experienced it back in the day, as well as those coming out to see us on this tour. It plays great and sounds massive; you’re gonna love it.”

If it is as good as the Noel Gallagher Riviera, that goes without saying. Gem Archer’s Masterbilt Sheraton has a Noel connection, too. When Archer joined Oasis in 1999, replacing the outgoing Bonehead, it was Noel who turned him onto the Sheraton.

“The Epiphone Sheraton first came into my world when I borrowed Noel’s for Oasis tours and recording,” says Archer. “When I started playing with him again in the High Flying Birds in 2017, this was the guitar I asked if he still had.

“I’m playing it again together with my signature model based on his ’66 original, on the Oasis Live ’25 tour. It’s got a ring and a clang to it, with loads of definition and clarity that I haven’t found in any other model.”

That “ring and clang” could be attributed to its Masterbilt treatment. Of the two new Oasis semi-hollows, this is the more upscale.

Conforming to the Inspired By Gibson Custom design idiom, it features a pair of Gibson USA mini-humbuckers, gold hardware, with Grover Rotomatic tuners. There’s multi-ply binding to the body, a bound fretboard and headstock – and just look at that raised diamond trapeze tailpiece (the bound tortoiseshell pickguard is not bad either).

The Sheraton is a five-ply build of maple and poplar, with a maple centre block, with a 60s C profile mahogany neck glued to the body and topped with a 12” radius rosewood fingerboard. Again, it’s aesthetically audacious with those MOP block inlays with triangular abalone inserts. You’d want to make sure your shoes are nicely polished when playing this one.

And yet the Bonehead Riviera is a stunner in anyone’s books. Again, it has a five-ply construction (all maple this time) with a maple centre block, and the spec is pretty much on-point as far as 2025 Epiphones go.

You have a pair of Epiphone’s full-fat Alnico Classic Pro humbuckers, controlled by dual-volume and tone controls, CTS pots as standard. The neck is glued-in and a three-piece maple design fashioned into a SlimTaper C (we’d expect this to be very similar in feel to Archer’s Sheraton).

The white pickguard with the Epiphone foil logo “E” looks really cool against that dark burst finish. And both guitars keep the signature details to a minimum, with just a graphic signature on the back of the headstocks.

That was one of the things we liked about the Noel Gallagher Les Paul Standard; you needn’t have been an Oasis fan to see the appeal of an Ebony Les Paul with that chrome switch washer and chrome covered P-90s.

It’s a rock ’n’ roll machine, and although it might not have had the ageing as the Murphy Lab replicas to come out of the Custom Shop, it has the nitrocellulose lacquer finish that should age nicely itself.

You can put the ageing on that hardware through playing it hard, and the best bit is that it is priced similarly to the current Les Paul Standards.

You can take it as read that the people of Gibson/Epiphone are chuffed to bits to get not one but three Oasis signature models out in the year of the band’s reunion. Lee Bartram, Gibson’s head of commercial and marketing EMEA, certainly is, and he has some personal memories of seeing the original versions of these electric guitars the first time around.

“The first time I remember seeing Gem playing that Cherry Red Epiphone Sheraton was on July 2, 2005, in Manchester – what a show!” says Bartram. “Gem was such an important part of the Oasis sound in the 2000s, and to see him carry that on with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds makes it a privilege to be part of this project.

“Spotting that Epiphone Riviera on stage during the Be Here Now tour in 1996 is something that stuck with me and inspired me to get my first Epiphone guitar. Nearly 30 years later, I’m honoured to have played a tiny part in bringing the Epiphone Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs Riviera to life.”

All three Gibson and Epiphone signature guitars come with a hardshell guitar case. The Bonhead Riviera is priced £849/$899. The Gem Archer Masterbilt Sheraton is £1,199/$1,299. See Epiphone for more details.

Noel Gallagher’s Les Paul Standard comes in at £2,699/$2,699. You can read more about it here and see more over at Gibson.

Remember that black Les Paul that Noel Gallagher was playing during Oasis’ stadium-filling reunion shows? Of course you do, it was the mystery electric guitar that got everyone talking, what was this thing?

And then Gibson launched a limited run of 25 Murphy Lab replicas in August, available exclusively via the Gibson Garage London. That Custom Shop special, built to Gallagher’s specifications, was no cheap date. It was a high-end electric guitar priced for the collector’s market.

Well, if you had FOMO about all that then, today should offer a measure of compensation because now you have the chance to buy one as Gibson has just added the Noel Gallagher Les Paul Standard to its regular lineup.

This is pretty much spit of the original Murphy Lab model minus the ageing – that you will have to do yourself – and the aged nickel hardware (which was apparently a tough nut to crack, even for the Gibson Custom Shop).

But this does have the dual P-90 electric guitar pickups, the chrome washer on the three-way pickup selector, chrome Grover Rotomatic tuners with the ‘kidney bean’ buttons, and the black ‘top hat’ control knobs with silver inserts.

And there’s something about those chrome housings on the P-90s that make it look kind of punk, edgy, and for want of a better word, cool. Lee Bartram, Gibson’s head of commercial and Marketing EMEA, says it is here by popular demand.

“This guitar is simply too iconic and cool not to be released more widely and made available for more fans to get their hands on,” he says. “Noel’s original Gibson Custom version of this Les Paul was the first guitar he played during the biggest rock ’n’ roll reunion of the 21st century. This Gibson USA version embraces that legacy, capturing a historic moment in British and global live music.”

It is also a signature guitar that doesn’t just sell itself to the artist’s fans. You do not need to be have a bucket hat and a Stone Island parka in your wardrobe to enjoy a full-fat Les Paul Standard with no weight relief and P-90s. We’d like to run this with a fuzz pedal and throw around some Leslie West riffs, or tune it down and see how it sounds.

If you prefer a thinner Les Paul neck, you’ll find a kindred spirit in Gallagher. This has the SlimTaper profile, giving it that ‘60s LP feel.

Elsewhere, it’s as you were: ABR-1 bridge with Tune-o-matic stop-bar tailpiece, 12” rosewood fingerboard, 22 medium-jumbo frets, acrylic trapezoid inlays, the 24.75” scale length... It’s a Les Paul. You know the drill.

It's finished in gloss nitro, Ebony with cream binding, and it comes in hard-shell guitar case, with a relatively normal Gibson USA Les Paul price tag of £2,699/$2,699.

The Noel Gallagher Les Paul Standard is available now. See Gibson for more details, and if that price is still too steep, don't lose hope. It is not outwith the realms of possibility that Gallagher's Les Paul Standard is released as an Epiphone guitar, too. It has been known to happen.

• "Definitely, maybe, one of the best signature guitars of the year": Epiphone Noel Gallagher Riviera review

It’s looking likely that the Oasis reunion has another summer left in it and that the band are lining up some gigs at Knebworth next year.

There has been speculation about this for weeks. Liam himself seemed to hint that there was more to come from the band when replying to a fan’s tweet, asking why the 2002 single The Hindu Times wasn’t in their setlist. Liam posted: "Chill Winston, it’s not even HALF TIME yet. It’s a tour of 2 half’s (sic)."

Now the biggest indication yet that Oasis are set to reprise their 1996 two-night stand at the Hertfordshire stately home has come in the unlikely setting of the House Of Lords, not - it must be said - where music news usually breaks.

On Wednesday, Lady Taylor of Stevenage spoke to the house and said: "Next July, I will have the benefit of five days of Oasis concerts in the fantastic venue of Knebworth House, which is just about a mile away from my house."

The Labour peer then added: “I can hear and enjoy (the gigs) from my house, and they represent the important cultural role of music venues and …make an enormous contribution to our economy.”

Just hours after this, Lady Taylor appeared to row back on this, claiming that she was “speaking hypothetically following speculation that they would play Knebworth again as they did in August 1996. I understand the band have not confirmed this.”

Methinks the lady has already said too much…

As yet, there has been no comment on any of this from the Oasis camp. The band are currently on the Asian leg of their world tour.

However, it would appear that the person who actually owns the Knebworth estate, Henry Lytton-Cobbal,d is keen on the idea. When news of the Oasis reunion broke at the end of August 2024, he suggested doing a gig there this year: “Wembley is a reasonable warm-up venue for Knebworth,” he joked. “Then get ready for a nice huge 30th shindig in 2026.”

Now, in the wake of Lady Taylor’s, er intervention, he’s been quoted in the Guardian as saying: “Clearly it’s what the people want, clearly it should happen – but let’s get it in the diary, as our summer 2026 weekends are swiftly filling up.”

As everyone involved is doubtless aware, next year it will be thirty years since Oasis played those two landmark gigs at Knebworth. They represented both the high point of the band’s cultural power, and Britpop itself – an estimated 2.5 million people applied for tickets for the gigs, 4% of the UK population at the time. It is likely that many more than that would want to see them in 2026, and why wouldn’t the Gallaghers want to put on what are likely to be the largest concerts the UK has ever seen?

It should come as no surprise that some of the best hard rock guitar tones we’ve heard this year arrived courtesy of one Wolfgang Van Halen.

The End, which is the third full-length from the singer/guitarist’s Mammoth project, is riddled with world-dominating distortion and thunderous overdrive.

Wolfgang tells MusicRadar that virtually all of the album was recorded with a gold relic prototype of his EVH SA-126 signature guitar, going into an EVH 5150 III 6L6 amp and cab.

“With the second album, it was a different guitar, but still the second or third prototype of my SA-126 signature,” he explains. “I’ve come to know what works for Mammoth and that’s the SA, for sure.”

Using a semi-hollow guitar in a high gain situation will usually result in a lot of unwanted noise, but not this one.

It’s a consideration at the very heart of the SA-126 design, with the Wolfgang and the EVH team trying to find a balance between vintage warmth and modern practicality.

“Controlling a semi-hollow with gain is an art form in itself,” adds Wolfgang. “But we ended up finding a happy medium with the slightly hotter wound pickups that Tim Shaw helped us with.”

He continues: “Most classic semi-hollows have an 8.2k wind, so we did three – the classic, 10.2k and 12.2k.

“The latter was too much, it was feeding back like crazy. 10.2k was perfect. There was noise but you could manage it in a fun way. It’s nice to have help but you can’t let the pickup do all the work.”

The 5150 III 6L6 is the same rig Wolfgang uses live. Interestingly, the touring guitarists in his band – Jon Jourdan and Frank Sidoris – incorporate different variations of the same head.

“We use every aspect of the 5150 III, so Jon plays the EL34 and Frank plays the Stealth,” Wolfgang reveals.

With the signature guitars doing so well, it begs the question – could we ever see a Wolfgang Van Halen signature amp at some point?

“It’s possible,” he admits, “but right now I’m so happy with the 6L6. I don’t know what the point would be.

“It would be fun to do if there’s time. I’ve been touring so much, I leave a lot of this stuff up to [business partner] Matt Bruck. That’s exactly how he was with my dad. They started the company together.”

As it turns out, the amp used for the album was the same head and cab he had on stage at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert in London in 2022.

“We retired that amp,” Wolfgangs says. "It just lives in the studio now because it’s so special to me.

He adds with a smile: “I even call the head and cab Liam and Noel as a little hint to the whole Wembley thing.”

Wolfgang is a big fan of Oasis, but hasn’t been able to catch any of their reunion shows.

“They played LA two days after I left and I was so bummed to miss that Oasis show,” he shrugs. “I hope they keep it going so I can catch them later on. Noel is one of my favourite songwriters in general, he’s just so good.”

Noel Gallagher’s influence on popular rock and Britrock cannot be overstated. But – particularly with the first three Oasis albums – it’s easy for people to forget how heavy he could be when his heart desired.

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Wolfgang nods. “There’s definitely some heavier stuff in there, but usually people just think of the biggest hits. Oasis are so much more than that.

“I think from the American perspective, a lot of people tend to think of them as the Wonderwall band, but when I’m in the UK it’s like, ‘No, it’s all about the whole catalogue’.

“I love Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants. That’s a big one for me. I love that album.”

For Wolfgang, who cites Abbey Road and Revolver among his favourite albums, that connection between Oasis and The Beatles is a big draw.

“Well, when you look up some of the interviews he’s put out, sometimes it sounds like Liam thinks he’s in The Beatles, too!” Wolfgang laughs. “But, honestly, they’re great.”

Oasis wrapped up the UK leg of their reunion tour this weekend and head off now for dates in Japan, Australia and South America. But fans still have a film of the reunion tour to look forward to, which, according to one source, will have 'phenomenal' behind-the-scenes footage of the Gallaghers.

That source, said to be close to the producer Steven Knight, has told the Mirror: “The footage and access given to Steven and his team is phenomenal. Liam and Noel have never been seen in such an open and vulnerable way.”

“This is much greater than a ‘let’s do it for the money’ comeback. It centres on deep-seated emotions – jealousy, ill-will, anger – and then a deep desire for reconciliation.”

They continue: “The footage of them being reunited, and discussions of how that came to be, will see the pair of them opening up like never before. It was very raw and deeply moving. Liam had to man up and make apologies and take ownership of much of the cause of the issues.”

“Noel, too, stepped up. The first couple of weeks were maybe the first time egos were left at the door. Of course, once we got closer to the gigs, Liam’s swagger was back with a bang – but away from the spotlight he’s been mindful of maintaining harmony.”

Up until now, fans have had little idea of what’s actually been going on between the two brothers behind the stage. The Gallaghers have kept the press at arm’s length since the reunion announcement last year.

There have been zero interviews and no official explanation of how and why, after years of sniping at each other on social media, they suddenly decided to get back together. You’d hope Knight’s film will be able to tell us more.

Meanwhile, the band have confirmed that their 2000 live album Familiar To Millions is to be reissued. It’s a recording of their show at Wembley Stadium from July of that year and was their only official live album during the band’s initial lifetime.

Back then, it was significant for finally seeing a release for Step Out, a track that was withdrawn from (What’s The Story) Morning Glory at the last minute because of its, well, startling similarity to Stevie Wonder’s Uptight.

Familiar To Millions is coming out in double CD and triple vinyl formats, with the vinyl arriving in an array of different colours – silver, blue, red and black. It’s out on November 14, just a few weeks after the 30^th Anniversary edition of Morning Glory, which will be in the shops at the end of this week (October 3).

Oasis have announced they are launching a project called Rock N’ Roll Stars, which will sell prints of the band with funds going to help “put music back into UK schools.”

It’s in collaboration with the ‘cultural platform’ CIRCA. The idea is to sell prints of handwritten lyrics for the Oasis classics Don’t Look Back In Anger, Stand By Me, Champagne Supernova, Wonderwall and Rock N’ Roll Star, together with a screen print or Noel and Liam walking out hand in hand at one of their recent Wembley gigs.

There is a time limit on them though – you have exactly 60 days to purchase them, until November 25 this year.

And yes, all of Oasis’ royalties from the prints (or 50% of the total proceeds) will be used to purchase and distribute musical instruments and provide educational support in UK state schools. It’s a rare act of altruism from a band not generally known for being bleeding hearts.

CIRCA have issued a press statement that explains the project. “Music in schools is in crisis. Since 2020, the number of music teachers entering training has dropped by 76 percent. A-level entries are down more than 13 percent since 2017, and almost half of schools no longer offer GCSE Music. For working-class kids, the chance to make noise is being stripped away.”

Schools who want to take part in the project have until November 25 to apply online on the CIRCA website. Those selected will receive instrument packs tailored especially to different age groups, which include percussion kits (say tambourines and glockenspiels) for younger kids to guitars, keyboards and drum kits for secondary school pupils.

As well as the instruments, the project is providing online resources and backing tracks (including some Oasis classics) which will be available for free online, so that “even schools with little or no existing music provision can bring entire classrooms together to play...ensuring that the project inspires future rock ‘n’ roll stars worldwide.”

The lyric prints are going for £175 plus VAT, though the image of Noel and Liam at Wembley is a bit more expensive, at £500 plus VAT. It is going to a good cause, though…

Schools that are interested in getting involved in the project should head over to the CIRCA website at https://circa.art/oasis

The guitar that Liam Gallagher smashed up the evening Oasis split up in August 2009 is going up for auction.

It’s a 1960s Gibson ES-355 in red, and its place in rock history is that of the straw that broke the camel’s back regarding Noel and his relationship with his younger bro.

As you might recall, the pair had been sniping at each other on social media and in the press for quite some time in the run-up to an appearance at the Paris Rock en Seine festival.

There was a backstage fight just before Oasis were about to go on stage. The 335 got smashed, and the next morning, via the band’s website, came the confirmation: “It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight,” Noel wrote. “People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”

The guitar is now fully repaired and is expected to fetch up to £500,000 at the Propstore Music Memorabilia auction which takes place on October 23 and 24.

It’s one of over 100 Oasis-related items that Propstore is accepting bids for, including the Takamine FP460SC acoustic that Noel used to record Wonderwall, which is expected to go for anything between £200,000 and £400,000.

Also up for grabs is a pair of John Lennon’s old specs; some tinted prescription glasses that the ex-Beatle wore during his 1973 – 75 ‘lost weekend’ period. Those are likely to go for between £150,000 and £300,000.

Mark Hochman, Propstore’s Music Specialist, said in a statement: “Propstore’s auction is a celebration of music history, with guitars that shaped the sound of a generation, handwritten lyrics that capture the first spark of legendary songs, and personal items that offer a glimpse into the lives of the world’s greatest music artists.

"From John Lennon’s unmistakable glasses to Noel Gallagher’s iconic guitars, these are not just collectables; they’re cultural touchstones that have inspired millions.”

The auction is a two-day affair. The first will be held at The Cumberland Hotel, London on October 23 and will feature in-person bidding open to the public. The following day’s auction is online only and will feature the 100+ Oasis-related items, including Noel’s guitars.

If you have a few spare thousand burning a hole in your wallet and fancy getting your hands on some rock history, the full catalogue is available to view and bid on at Propstore.

The summer of 2025 has brought pop-culture the biggest reunion tour of all time, and quite possibly one of the most collectible Les Pauls, too. After Gibson teased the release last week, today it officially unveils the Murphy Lab aged replica of the black P-90 equipped Les Paul Standard that Noel Gallagher has been playing during the Oasis comeback shows.

Sometimes the marketing bumf overcooks it. But when Gibson refers to this Custom Shop signature guitar as “the most talked-about guitar of the summer” it is no exaggeration. Even players who would gladly sit out the Oasis stadium experience couldn’t help but be intrigued by Gallagher’s mystery black Les Paul Standard.

Here was this bespoke single-cut with the humbuckers swapped out for P-90s, aged nickel pickup coverings giving it an industrial look. The three-way pickup selector switch was mounted on a nickel poker chip washer. There clearly has been some aging, with the binding taking on a darker buttercream/custard yellow tinge, the lacquer checked. What was this?

Well, the Gibson Gazette revealed all on on July 30. Gallagher’s Live ’25 Les Paul Standard was a Murphy Lab special order, Light Aged in Nashville, with a second round of aging to bring it up to Gallagher’s specifications. Lee Bartram, head of commercial, marketing & cultural influence, Gibson EMEA, spilled the beans, noting that Gallagher had fallen hard for P-90s when playing Epiphone Casinos during the touring cycle with his High Flying Birds.

“It really came from a conversation around creating a Les Paul that would accommodate P-90s at high volumes, without compromising on the sound and tone of the pickup,” said Bartram. “Aesthetically, Noel had an idea of what he wanted it to look like, and we tried out a few hardware, finish, and color options before landing where we did.”

Bartram said those aged nickel pickup covers were not easy to get right. When Gibson first started working with Gallagher, no one had any idea that they were making a custom electric guitar specifically for this then-unannounced reunion tour.

“For this guitar to be part of such a monumental musical event is a thrill, and knowing it was designed specifically for it makes it even better,” he said. “The first time people saw the band together in 16 years was with a guitar that Gibson designed and built directly with the artist. That’s pretty cool.”

Agreed. So what about this replica? The first thing to note is that it is a Gibson Garage London exclusive, limited to just 25 units. The price has not been revealed.

As in restaurants with no prices on the menu, that tells you it won’t be cheap. But for Oasis fans – for Les Paul fans – this is a super-collectible instrument.

Each instrument has had the Light Aging treatment from the Murphy Lab in Nashville. Each instrument has been hand-signed by Gallagher himself (across the back, tastefully discrete). And the specs are the same as Gallagher’s original, with a SlimTaper neck, Grover tuners with nickel kidney bean-style buttons – again, lightly aged to match the pickup housings.

The case candy isn’t so bad either – come to think of it, the guitar case with its blue velvet lining is pretty sweet. Inside, you’ll find a custom-made Bear guitar strap, plus a certificate of authenticity, and a hand-written lyric sheet from Gallagher, with each of the 25 guitars shipping with lyrics to a different Oasis song. Pretty cool.

Also, in today’s press release, Bartram hints that we might not have seen the last Gibson x Oasis release this year.

“Gibson is honoured to support Noel Gallagher in what has become one of the biggest music reunion tours in recent history,” says Bartram. “When he reached out, the challenge was to create a guitar with a striking, unique look while ensuring it produced the sound needed for the Live ’25 tour. Based on the feedback from fans so far, the team has certainly nailed it.

“To kick off what is going to be a very exciting few months for our partnership, we have this truly unique collector’s package with each guitar accompanied by handwritten lyrics from Noel representing an Oasis track, meaning no two guitars will be the same. It’s the perfect way to start our Live ’25 celebrations, with more to come.”

More to come? We like the sound of that. You can read more from Bartram at the Gibson Gazette.

As for the Gibson Custom Noel Gallagher Les Paul Standard, you better set a calendar reminder for August 21, when it will be available exclusively from the Gibson Garage London, in-person from 9am local time, or by calling +44 20 4570 5400 from 11am.

Chrissie Hynde has announced a new album of collabs under the name Chrissie Hynde & Pals.

As the name suggests, it’s a duets album, and sees the Pretender take on 13 covers with an array of intriguing names, including Debbie Harry, Dave Gahan, Cat Power, Shirley Manson, Brandon Flowers and the late Mark Lanegan.

The first single is a version of Always On My, Mind with Rufus Wainwright, which is out today. In a statement, Hynde explained that Wainwright had been the catalyst for the whole project.

“I never thought about doing a Duets album before. I think the idea came about in 2023. I was talking to Jörn, Rufus Wainwright’s husband, on the phone. I think we were recommending novels to each other and for some reason I said hey, maybe Rufus and I should do something, and quickly scribbled out 10 songs off the top of my head. So Jörn asked Rufus, who was up for it, and that’s how it started. A spontaneous and what I thought would be a fun thing.”

The 73-year-old singer is no novice when it comes to duets. Indeed decades before the appendage ‘featuring’ became a common sight on singles, she had a UK Number One with one when she guested on UB40’s version of I Got You Babe in 1985.

Other intriguing-looking tracks on the album include Me & Mrs Jones with K D Lang, and Hynde and Julian Lennon taking on It’s Only Love. The latter is surely the song from the Beatles’ Help! album written by... Julian’s dad, of course.

Anyway, she’s calling the album Duets Special and it’s out via Parlophone on October 17.

While she’s been prepping the new album, Hynde (along with Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne) has also been to one of the Oasis shows and took to Instagram to voice her approval: “James and I went with Johnny Marr to see Oasis the other week. They were great as one would expect. Saw a bunch of old pals in the audience and was dancing with Kate Moss to support act, the excellent voiced Richard Ashcroft”.

She continued: “Oasis were in great form…. There is still nothing better than a rock band doing their thing with a minimal light show and no extra people cluttering the stage. In other words, a proper f***ing rock band! Exactly what the world needs now.”

Gibson has teased a UK-exclusive release of the black custom-built 1960 Les Paul Standard that Noel Gallagher has been spotted playing during Oasis’s stadium-filling reunion shows.

Details of the release are thin on the ground. But thanks to Gibson's Instagram post, we do know this. It will be available exclusively from the Gibson Garage London on August 21st, it looks like Gallagher is signing each one of them, and they will go like hot cakes.

Is this a signature guitar? Don’t bet on it – at least it is most likely not a signature model in the strictest sense. This looks more like what Gibson did with Johnny Marr, spec’ing up a 20 replicas of his iconic Smiths-era Bigsby-equipped ’84 Les Pauls and selling them out of the Gibson Garage London to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

We would imagine these Gallagher Les Pauls would be similarly limited, and created in a similar spirit.

It is, however, a super-cool electric, especially with those aged-nickel covers on the P-90s. As it turns out, those were particularly challenging for Gibson to recreate.

When Gallagher emerged with this off-menu electric guitar, the guitar internet responded with the appropriate level of delirium and speculative frenzy, so the Gibson Gazette sat down with Lee Bartram, head of commercial, marketing and cultural influence at at Gibson EMEA, to talk about the guitar’s design.

Bartram said when they started working on the Les Paul 18 months ago he had no idea that it was going to be used for.

“Not knowing originally where that guitar was going to end up, it’s been quite emotional to see it being used during the biggest reunion tour ever,” said Bartram. “We’ve received amazing feedback on the guitar, and I think it’s safe to say it has become the talk of the town every time it is used – I’ve had so many people reach out wanting to know what it is and if we can build one for them.”

What it is is a 1960 Les Paul Standard with a SlimTaper neck, humbuckers swapped out, Custom Shop P-90s swapped in, with some Light Aged magic from the Murphy Lab applied to its Ebony paint job. Gallagher then sent it back for more.

“Everything we build for Noel starts out as Light Aging, and he will then decide after playing it if he wants to add more aging or keep it as it is, knowing it’s more straightforward to increase the aging levels than decrease them,” said Bartram. “In this case, he wanted more on the body, neck, and back, which looks great on stage.”

The tuners are grovers with kidney bean-style buttons. The pickguard is black. The control knobs are black top hats with silver inserts.

While it is hard to tell from an Instagram shot, with Gallagher hunted over a face-down guitar, marker pen in hand, it looks like these have had the Light Aged treatment. They are certainly not heavily aged as Gallagher’s stage-played model has.

But we’ll bring you more news as and when it arrives. And if you miss out? Well you could always order one yourself via Gibson's Made To Measure programme, or settle for a more budget-friendly Gallagher guitar, like his signature Epiphone Riviera.

One friend of Noel Gallagher’s has confirmed he definitely hasn’t been pestering him for a guest list place for the current run of Oasis dates. In an interview with Radio 2’s Jo Whiley, Paul Weller has said he won’t be going to see the reunited band. Why? Because he doesn’t like stadium shows.

"I’m not a big fan of big gigs,” the 67-year-old singer songwriter explained to the DJ. “I said to Noel, a few weeks or months ago: 'Are you going to do any warm-ups?’ which he wasn’t, but, I’d go and see something like that in a smaller venue, but I just don’t like big gigs. It doesn’t matter who it was, really."

He added: "Inevitably, it doesn’t matter too much where you’re sitting unless you’re right in the front row, you just end up watching the screens. It kind of spoils it a bit for me because I want to see whoever is playing or singing, and I want to be able to see them."

Of course, if you were feeling mischievous you might point out that this is the same Paul Weller who played Wembley Stadium just two years ago, supporting Oasis’s one time nemeses, Blur, but it should also be said that the majority of his headline shows take place in much smaller venues.

Elsewhere in the interview, Weller said that he was pleased for Noel since the Oasis reunion has turned out to be “a big cultural moment”.

He said: "You know how it’s going to go for him, it’s going to be mad. I said to him that it’s going to be a cultural moment because the amount of people I speak to just out on the street, not necessarily who you’d think would be an Oasis fan, but they are all going to it, and it’s a big cultural moment, I think that will be remembered forever.

"There’s probably not too many bands like them (Oasis) at the moment, y’know, kind of guitar music. I can’t think of any, not from the UK anyway, maybe Fontaines DC is different and people like that. So, I think it’s definitely a younger audience who missed out on that ’90s thing."

Tony McCarroll, the original Oasis drummer, has talked about the 1995 incident that he claims led directly to his sacking.

McCarroll was a founder member of the group but was ejected from the band after playing on Definitely Maybe and the band’s next two singles, Whatever and Some Might Say.

As the group’s popularity mushroomed during 1994 he frequently clashed with Noel and Liam Gallagher, both of whom were openly contemptuous of what they perceived as the drummer’s limited abilities.

But according to McCarroll himself, it was the result of one incident in Paris in Spring 1995 that proved to be the final straw for his relationship with the brothers Gallagher.

Talking to The Sun, McCarroll said: “I was next door to Noel’s hotel room, which I didn’t know. I had an argument with some girl I was with and the next day we were doing the soundcheck. I just finished my bit, and he turned around and, in front of everybody, he went, ‘You f***ing keep me awake again, you’re getting f***ing sacked, mate’.

Tony added: “Probably the most stupid thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I fronted him and said, ‘You won’t f***ing speak to me like that again, no chance’. It was only a matter of weeks later I got the P45.”

McCarroll claims that to this day he doesn’t regret standing up to Noel.

“What sort of man would it make me if I didn’t? Everybody was under threat every day, but it was just bravado. I never saw it being something serious like losing your position in the band.”

Of course, the drummer is being disingenuous if he thinks that that was the only reason he left Oasis. While McCarroll’s playing was passable on Definitely Maybe, for the more musically ambitious songs on (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? they sought a more proficient player.

Famously, it was Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs who neatly summed up the group’s feelings on the matter, saying: “There’s no guilt. If the five of us owned a chip shop, and he wasn’t putting enough batter on the fish or he was burning the chips, it’d be ‘Right, you’re sacked.’”

McCarroll later sued Oasis for unpaid royalties and came to a £550,000 settlement,. With that settlement came the agreement that he'd relinquish all claims on future royalties.

Despite this, Tony seems remarkably lacking in bitterness about the way things turned out, telling the Sun: “I wish I had a few more quid, but I’ve got to be proud and happy that I’ve made my mark.”

And he also expressed an interest in making up with Noel after all these years. “Would I sit down and have a cup of tea, a Rich Tea, with Noel, and go, ‘What the f*ck happened, mate?’ I would.”

Oasis are releasing another live track that was recorded on their current sold-out tour reunion tour.

Cigarettes & Alcohol was recorded before 340,000 fans at Heaton Park in Manchester on 11 July. It’s the second such live Oasis track to get an official release, following Slide Away, which was recorded on the opening night of the tour in Cardiff three weeks ago.

It features Liam at his most Lydon-esque, snarling out the lyrics while hundreds of thousands of fans provide backing vocals. “See you later, it’s good sh*t man, good sh*t, innit?” he can be heard saying as the band finishes.

Tomorrow the Oasis charabanc reaches Wembley for the first of their seven dates at the stadium.

The band’s reunion has had a predictable knock-on effect on the charts. Don’t Look Back In Anger and Live Forever have re-entered the UK Top 20 and Acquiesce – which originally was only a B-side – has reached the chart for the first time.

In the album chart the Oasis effect is even more pronounced with the band’s hits collection Time Flies 1994 – 2009 returning to Number One and (What’s The Story?) Morning Glory and Definitely Maybe both re-entering the Top 5.

And that’s before two more Oasis archive releases hit the shops in the coming weeks. 22 August sees the release of the band’s ‘Complete Studio Album Collection’ box set and on October 3 there’s the Deluxe 30th Anniversary edition of Morning Glory.

If either of those interest you, click here.

Oasis have released the first official recording from their mammoth comeback tour.

Slide Away was 16th on the setlist at Cardiff on Friday night, and you can hear the crowd in good voice. Make your own mind up about Liam’s vocal below.

We were lucky enough to be in the Principality Staidum on the night and you can read our full report which, amongst other things, reveals the real reason for all the bucket hats, here.

Meanwhile, there’s no doubt the tour is making a giant splash, as borne out by newly revealed airplay and streaming figures.

Spotify yesterday confirmed a 320% surge in Oasis streams the day after the first gig, with the tracks from the setlist that aren’t amongst the band’s biggest chart hits leading the charge - Hello was on the sharp end of a 1,115% spike, while both Bring it on Down and Fade Away benefited to the tune of 1000%.

Taking a wider view, PPL, the firm that runs airplay licensing in the UK, reported that Oasis’s combined airplay since the turn of the century runs to an average of 120 plays a day across the UK, adding up to an impressive seven years of cumulative play in total. That’s a lot of Oasis.

Meanwhile, another new study claims that Don’t Look Back in Anger and Wonderwall have probably earned over £10,000,000 between them, with the former clocking up £7,057,223, if you accept an average payout of $0.004 for each of the track’s 2.3 billion streams.

Don't Look Back… has clocked up 1.1 billion streams, while Champagne Supernova and Stop Crying Your Heart Out are claimed to have earned £1,449,431 and £1,378,028, respectively.

The band's next stop is Manchester, for 5 sold-out (duh) nights at Heaton Park, before the tour rumbles on to Wembley Stadium, then Scotland, Ireland, Canada, the US, Mexico, the Far East, Australia and South America (assuming they make it that far...).

You know a song has reached the pinnacle in rock when it makes people grimace in guitar shops; not because it's bad but because nearly everyone plays it when they pick up a guitar. Smoke On The Water, Stairway… and Wonderwall. 

Only one is a real songwriter's song; something one player and an acoustic guitar can deliver, and frequently will on high streets and in bars. It's a classic; a timeless sing-along with that elusive kind of universal appeal. But Noel Gallagher's own band didn't even like it when they first heard it.

"Everyone in the band went, 'I'm sorry but I don't f*****g think so," recalled Noel in a 2023 interview with That Pedal Show. Brother Liam was even more scathing.

"I remember Our Kid saying, and I'll never forget this, 'Why are you writing reggae songs?' And I was like, there speaks a man that has never heard reggae."

The younger Gallagher's confusion aside, at this point it was clear Noel knew what he was doing. From the watershed moment of writing Definitely Maybe's Live Forever, Oasis's songwriter had been in a seemingly endless creative purple patch.   

"Because I'd got on such a mission as a songwriter, and it was happening, I could feel it happening, from that day of Live Forever, every song that I wrote, up until I'd say '97, is now world-famous," he told TPS. "And it was just a moment in time where I was living out of a suitcase," added Noel. "I had no girlfriend, had anywhere to live; that was my thing."

The girlfriend part might be questionable when it comes to Wonderwall. Its subject has often been the subject of much conjecture. Assumed to be about the Meg Matthews, who would become Noel's first wife in 1997, Noel put the record straight on that recently.

"When I wrote it, we did the cover and there's a girl on the front who used to work in the Creation offices," he explained to Talk Sport earlier this year. "She had long blonde hair, she looked like my then-wife, Meg Matthews. Doing the interviews for the thing [later], and they say, 'Is this about your wife?', and what do you say? No? So you say yes but it's not about anyone in particular.'

"It's generic, which is why it's so popular, I guess," he added "Most of my great songs are about the universal truths of life? They're not really that autobiographical."

As Fran Healy asked on Travis's 1997 hit Writing To Reach You, 'What's a Wonderwall anyway?' The recording of the song is much more interesting – involving Noel atop an actual wall.

Oasis's second album (What's The Story) Morning Glory was recorded at Monmouth's Rockfield studios in Wales during the May and June of 1995. To mark the 25th anniversary of the album that made the band massive, Noel returned to the studio for the documentary above, and it turned up some interesting details as he dug through his memories in the studio where they were made. 

"That's the wall I sat on that day like a f*****g idiot, playing Wonderwall," says Noel at one point as he walks around Rockfield's outer compound. "I remember a load of sheep were watching me do Wonderwall. I don't know who was more freaked out – me or them."

"I remember saying to Owen [Morris, co-producer alongside Noel], I've got this song called Wonderwall – I want to record it on a wall," adds Noel.

So the song came first, it's not actually named after the unsuspecting wall on the back of the studio. But Noel was serious about the idea of field recording with stepladders and £20k of microphones. And it happened. 

"I remember being really cold and saying in the mic to Owen, 'I think this is a shit idea.'"

While the results didn't make it into the final version of Wonderwall, Noel's performance on the wonder wall did make the album; you can hear it right at the very beginning of Morning Glory's opener Hello – complete with birds singing in the background.

That was a rare moment of experimentation in sessions that were focussed and relatively fast.  In sharp contrast to the previous 14-month sessions the Welsh studios had hosted for part of the Stone Roses' Second Coming album. "I set up everything pretty quickly and Noel arrived at is was really fast," recalls resident engineer Nick Brine in the documentary. "They got used to the place pretty quick. They were buzzing to be here and everyone was in here from 10 or 11 in the morning to late at night every day, there was something going on – it was one song after another."

The residential facilities at the studio made sure the band were on-site – with the exception of trips to the local town Monmouth's pubs with Brine as the designated driver for members who weren't needed at the studio.

Brine is the key figure for details of the sessions, and kept written records from the time. He went into much more detail with Oasis fan and YouTuber James Hargreaves in the video above. Brine confirms the mic setup for the sessions with a Neumann kmi84 for the bright top end combined with the Neumann U47 FET or AKG 414 condenser mics. Liam would use the U47 for his vocals too. 

But the acoustic guitar was especially vital on Morning Glory; most of the band hadn't even heard the songs properly before going into record them and Noel's acoustic guide tracks – recorded to a click track with a guide vocal – became the foundation for everything. 

"The challenge when we went into Morning Glory was, we never demoed any of it, and I wrote them all on an acoustic guitar on the road or in hotel rooms," Noel confirmed to That Pedal Show. 

While Oasis played hard in the evenings, Noel worked hard and sessions were clearly prioritising efficiency; Brine confirms they reused the wall experiment recording for Wonderwall's guide track, while the rest of the songs were done in the studio itself.

The acoustic guitar used on the song is now in Brine's possession after it was gifted to him by Noel following Brine's own guitar getting smashed by Liam in the later Be Here Now sessions at Abbey Road. This Takamine FP-460SC cutaway (with a treo-fitted Mimesis pickup), was used on the album alongside what is believed to be an Epiphone Frontier. The Takamine still has the same strings on it that were used for tracking Wonderwall. 

Hargreaves points out that this same Takamine was likely the one Noel used for a 1996 performance of Wonderwall On The Late Late Show, as well as Oasis's MTV Unplugged and Knebworth performances from that year. But the electric guitar used on the song is the one with even greater star quality. 

Firstly, the Fender Strat used for the recording is unusual in being the first single-coil guitar Noel used in Oasis. Secondly, he bought it from Johnny Marr – who used it on a number of Smiths recordings. Its year is unconfirmed but That Pedal Show believes it's circa 1965. 

"This one I bought off him, because I was feeling a bit bad," Noel explained to TPS, deciding he had to stump up after Marr had gifted him some of his Smiths Les Pauls. "I'd never had a Strat, I'd never played anything with single coil pickups. I'm not sure I knew or was interested in the difference to it. I played this guitar on the Morning Glory sessions – this guitar is on Wonderwall, it's on Don't Look Back In Anger [the solo]."

The part in question doubles the acoustic lead melody in the chorus, with Owen Morris and Bonehead adding additional mellotron parts after Noel had stolen his thunder by playing all the guitar parts on the song.   

Over two decades later Noel dusted the Fender Strat down out of storage and wrote AKA… What A Life! from his debut solo album with the High Flying Birds. He then discovered from Marr what he'd written Smiths songs including Girlfiend In A Coma and Stop Me If You Think That You've Heard This One Before on it.

As Noel continued to revisit the song live in his solo career – taking some influence from Ryan Adams' plaintive 2003 version of the song that the Oasis songwriter is said to have admired – one question remains, why did Noel let Liam sing it on the album? Especially considering his brother didn't seem to like the song at first.

"I didn't," Noel told Frank Skinner on the latter's TV talk show in 2000. "We had a long heated debate about who was going to sing that song, and in the end his bottom lip went too far down towards his kneecaps. He looked very, very sad. So I said, 'Alright, I'm going to sing the other one, which was Don't Look Back In Anger."

Nevertheless, Noel would often sing Wonderwall on acoustic versions during Oasis  sets as the band struggled for a while to perform a full-band version they were satisfied with.  

As for how the song was written in the first place, we know from the George Martin video below that a capo Noel was gifted added inspiration on the second fret to a four-chord progression he'd had kicking around for a while. But there are different accounts on the when and where of writing it.

Noel told Brine he wrote it on the train on the way to Rockfield. A tall tale that Noel would often use. As James Hargreaves points out in his excellent video on the making of the song above (well worth watching as it confirms Noel probably tracked the bass and later outro piano on the song too), Noel has consistently said elsewhere that Wonderwall was written over time in various locations, including Brighton, Camden and Scotland. But the initial inspiration for it came after a show. 

"A fan one night after a gig earnestly put this thing into my hand and she closed it," Noel told Sirius XM. "She closed it and she said, 'That's your wishing stone, you should write a song about that.' I wrote this song Wonderwall and for a long time the title was called Wishing Stone." Luckily the obvious inspiration of George Harrison's album Wonderwall Music stepped in and a classic was born. But even its writer is still baffled by its legacy.

"My daughter is now 20 years of age and she gets people coming up to her saying, 'No way, did your dad actually write the song Wonderwall?!'" Noel reflected to SiriusXM in 2021. 

"She gets mobbed over it and she wasn't even f*****g there. It's a strange thing, we didn't perform that song for a long time because we could never get it right. Liam hated it, I'm not sure the rest of the band were too keen on it. Why that song took hold on the planet the way that it did is crazy. There's no rhythm or reason for it. It just is. It's mad when you think of it and I try not to think of it. It's just one of my songs."

• The 6 non-album Noel Gallagher Oasis songs you need to hear (that aren't on The Masterplan)

Oh dear. Billie Joe Armstrong just kicked a fan offstage at a gig when they deliberately started playing the wrong song. Instead of striking up Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) the prankster began playing the opening chords to Wonderwall.

The incident happened on Monday night (30 June) at the Luxepo in Luxembourg. As is the way with Green Day, for their set closer they invited a punter up on stage to join in with them and start the song off. But on this occasion the fan didn’t stick to the script.

In footage captured at the show you can see the fan strumming Wonderwall followed by Armstrong exclaiming "oh fuck me" into the mic before he takes the acoustic off him and the fan is ushered off stage by security. “Nice try, nice try”, Armstrong says, before he starts the song on his own.

When footage of the incident went online, who should respond but Liam Gallagher himself, who simply couldn’t stop himself. “Best song of the night,” he quipped on Twitter/X.

Those of us with long memories might recall that his brother once had something to say about this very scenario. Back when he was promoting his first High Flying Birds album in 2011, Noel spoke to Rolling Stone and said: “I’ve always thought most bands should play Oasis songs, anyway. The Foo Fighters should definitely do a couple. Green Day could do even more than one or two. Radiohead? I mean, let’s face it. It’d be a better night out.”

Glastonbury is behind us and now the focus switches to the other big story of the summer – the Oasis reunion shows, which start this Friday in Cardiff, UK.

And yesterday we heard the unmistakable sound of the band rehearsing, which was uploaded onto the Internet by a fan, who presumably just happened to be loitering outside the Principality Stadium, captured it on his phone and tagged it “Oasis soundcheck in Cardiff just now @liamgallagher sounding biblical”.

Then a second clip was uploaded, of Liam singing rhe same song – Cigarettes and Alcohol. This fan captioned it with: “THEY’RE IN THERE!!! @liamgallagher and @oasis are testing @pricicipalitysta speakers in Cardiff and they are LOUD”.

And of course with this being Twitter/ X these posts drew a response from Liam himself, who replied to them, jokingly: “Mmm I’m not sure about the vocals there too aggressive he really needs to take a chill pill man he’s just so angry all the time I don’t know who he thinks he is as far as I’m concerned he’s just a bigmouth from up north”.

The clips have caused a bit of a discussion among fans, with some arguing that the recordings weren’t the actual band rehearsing, but pre-taped recordings used to test sound levels in preparation for Friday.

Liam has waded into this, telling one fan that the audio from the stadium is “defo a recording from rehearsals unless there’s 2 of me which I’m absolutely 1 million per cent here for well there for as well.”

Meanwhile, doors and stage times have been announced for the two Cardiff gigs. Doors open at 5pm. Cast are on at 6, with Richard Ashcroft at 7, with Oasis coming up at 8:15pm. And Liam has tweeted about that too, saying: “Don’t be late or we’ll start without you and you don’t want that now do ya”.

Zak Starkey, eh? For decades, he’s seemingly lived a steady(ish) existence, known not just as Ringo’s son but also a dependable drummer in his own right, who’s held down a position in two of the UK’s biggest (and most combustible) acts. But we’ve heard more about and from him in the three months since his initial sacking from the Who than we have for the last 30 years.

Now he’s given a highly amusing interview to NME that covers everything from his long-drawn-out Who sacking to Oasis to his hobby band Mantra Of The Cosmos. Even if the Gallaghers are no longer talking to the press, one (ex) Oasis member is keeping up the band tradition of providing entertaining copy for the members of the fourth estate.

Inevitably, much of it concentrates on his recent sacking: “It was only one gig (at the Royal Albert Hall), it was only one fuck-up,” he says of the incident that kicked it all off. “At the end of the day, with technical problems and The Who, you see it all crash and we start it again. But on this particular occasion, I don’t know why, I dropped some beats, apparently. I’ve f***ing looked everywhere and I can’t find them!”

Of course, we know that Starkey won his job back, albeit temporarily. “Roger demanded a public apology and me admitting that I dropped two beats. So I did it, but with a duck playing drums – which is my character in the new Mantra Of The Cosmos video. Pete phoned me and he went, ‘Try that again without the duck’. I did it without the duck, got the gig back – 10 days later, sacked again. Roger said he couldn’t work with me no more after I’d done that.”

While this was going on, Oasis were sorting out the lineup for their reunion tour. This is Starkey on the fellow who got the coveted drummers’ position, Joey Waronker, and whether he has any advice for him: “He’s not a mod is he? Don’t fuck it up.

"Make sure you get your tempos right, them boys know. They’re smart. They’re some of the smartest musicians I’ve ever met. Whether it’s fast, it’s slow, they’re bang on it.”

Advice for Barry Keoghan, the actor set to play his dad in the forthcoming Beatles biopics? “Get a big rubber nose. I don’t know what else to say. He doesn’t look anything like my dad, does he? You can fix anything, can’t you? You can certainly give someone a big rubber nose.”

In the meantime, Mantra Of The Cosmos have another single lined up, which apparently is “better than this one – it’s a lot more political”. Then when asked what else he has coming up, Starkey replied: “If I say anything, Roger will say ‘You’re too busy!’ I’m going to have a wank and relax for a bit…”

Absolutely priceless.

An engineer who worked on the Oasis albums Be Here Now and (What’s The Story) Morning Glory has been telling his own story; specifically, of how he ended up with the Takamine acoustic Noel Gallagher recorded Wonderwall with.

It’s a tale Nick Brine has probably been dining out on for decades (well you would, wouldn't you?) and has now been related to BBC News. It seems it all started when Liam Gallagher kicked off one time at Abbey Road when the band were attempting to record Be Here Now.

"It was the morning after a heavy night and Liam was worse for wear," recalls Brine. “Noel had said something about him in the papers and Liam kicked off. I'm in Abbey Road's famous Studio Two setting up equipment and hungover myself, then looking up I saw a guitar come flying over from the control room.

"It was Noel's Fender Jag and it was smashed to bits. I run to the control room and Liam also made a big dent in Abbey Road's mixing desk. Then I see another acoustic guitar flying over the top and in a thousand pieces on the floor - and realise that's my guitar.”

It was his 1970s Japanese Fender and it was in smithereens.

"I thought it best if I didn't say anything. Noel came in and said 'what the hell is going on?'. It kicked off. Noel saw his guitar smashed up, then points to my smashed guitar and says 'whose is that?' Liam replies 'that's your guitar too', to which Noel replied 'it ain't mine.'"

Cue an argument about who was going to buy Nick a new one. Liam offered to take the engineer up to Denmark Street where he could have his pick of any he wanted. "Noel replied to Liam 'what the hell do you know about guitars?'," recalls Nick. "He said 'I'm going to get him a guitar'. There was another kick off about who was going to buy me a new one."

Gallagher Senior also insisted Liam call Nick’s mother to apologise for breaking the guitar she had once gifted her son. "It was like: 'Hello Mrs Brine, Liam Gallagher here, I'm ringing to apologise...', he told her what he'd done and was sorry. That typified Liam, angry one minute then angelic the next, I've always enjoyed his company."

Feeling embarrassed of his younger bro, it seems Noel gave Nick the Takamine acoustic he had used at Knebworth and for the MTV Unplugged performance. "I was gobsmacked,” he said. “I said 'it's OK, it's fine', but Noel insisted I take it. It more than made up for the smashed guitar, I couldn't believe it."

He’s still got it today. Should he ever wish to part company with it, it could be expected to go for anything up to £100,000.

The Be Here Now sessions were chaotic, Brine recalls. "We had press hounding us all the time to hear the songs, get any info because in 1997 Oasis were headline news virtually every day.”

"I was in charge of locking the tapes away every night so if anyone snuck or broke in, no-one could get to the tapes. Keeping them secret was almost a military operation which was made difficult as Liam used to bring people back to the studio from the pub to hear the recordings.”

Poor old Zak Starkey. He’s wasted the last three months leaving, then not leaving and eventually definitely leaving The Who. All the while he’s managed to miss out on another prime gig – the vacant position for drummer in Oasis.

That’s what he was bemoaning in a new interview with The Daily Star. Starkey sat behind the kit on the band’s final two albums – 2005’s Don’t Believe The Truth and Dig Out Your Soul from 2008 – and would have been in the running as sticksman on their 2025 comeback tour. Instead, that honour has gone to stalwart session player Joey Waronker. Much to Zak’s chagrin.

“I’ll cry if I go, in case he mucks it up," said Starkey. "I’m sure he won’t, but you know that’s my favourite band. I’d have done that gig for nothing, you know? I just loved it. I can’t see someone else do it, that’s not me.”

The drummer also continued his recent habit of making puzzling comments about his elongated sacking from The Who. It seems he’s still “friends” with Mssrs Daltrey and Townshend, even though he got fired. “I got fired, twice,” he reiterated. “Once I wasn’t even there.”

“I didn’t enjoy what they (the reports) were saying about Roger (Daltrey), because he’s my friend. And we talk on the phone every week still. And I text with Pete (Townshend) for hours. We’re still great friends. We’ll always be friends and brothers, really.

"Roger thought that I was so busy that he needed to retire me because of Mantra [his hobby band Mantra Of The Cosmos] but I’m actually not busy at all.”

He also intimated that he could even end up rejoining The Who. Again. “Last week Roger said, ‘Don’t take your drums out of the warehouse yet in case we need you’. What the f**k, Roger!? Has anyone been fired three times from you? I said, ‘If that’s going to happen, please let me know’.”

The Oasis Live 25 tour starts in just over three weeks, at the Cardiff Principality Stadium on July 4.

We’re just weeks away from the start of the Oasis reunion tour and at least one name in the line-up (other than the Gallaghers, of course) has now been pencilled in on the team sheet: Andy Bell is on bass duties.

The Ride guitarist spent a decade in Oasis from 1999 to 2009 and later was a part of Liam’s post-Oasis group, Beady Eye. He confirmed his involvement in an interview with Austrian newspaper Oe24, saying: “I’m in and I’m really looking forward to it,” he said. “We’ll see each other on tour. Or rather, you’ll see me – I’ll hardly be able to see you in the audience.”

Bell’s involvement had been expected for a while. NME broke a story in March suggesting that according to “sources close to the band” Bell was in, along with Gem Archer and Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs both on guitars and session drummer Joey Waronker. At least one of those, we now know, is correct.

Meanwhile, just one day after Oasis co-manager Alec McKinlay intimated that there’ll be no new music from the reformed band, Liam Gallagher has pulled rank and stated that that’s very much not for him to say.

Responding to a fan who remarked that said that it didn’t feel “very biblical” for McKinlay to dismiss the possibility of future Oasis activity, Liam tweeted: “Neither do I and the only people that will be making any kind of decisions on the future of OASIS will be ME n RKID (Noel) so let’s just take it one day at a time.”

Liam reiterated this later, pointing out another fan who thought “there must be a degree of truth” to the manager’s comments that McKinley is “the accountant” for the band.

Then, when pressed further by another fan to directly say if the manager was lying, Gallagher caused further confusion when he responded with a simple: “Am I?”

There will doubtless be much more speculation about whether the Gallaghers’ rapprochment is temporary or permanent before we arrive at a definitive answer. Watch this space...

A key figure from the Oasis camp has broken cover and confirmed there’ll be no new music from the band.

Alec McKinlay from the band’s management company Ignition has also intimated that this will be the final chance to see the band, describing the Gallaghers’ reunion as “the last time around.”

McKinlay was talking to Music Week – the band won Best Catalogue Marketing Campaign at the annual awards last week. Asked if there will be a new Oasis album on the group’s Big Brother label, he said: "This is very much the last time around, as Noel’s made clear in the press.

"It’s a chance for fans who haven’t seen the band to see them, or at least for some of them to. But no, there’s no plan for any new music.”

This will undoubtedly disappoint fans, many of whom will have had their hopes raised when Liam started tweeting enthusiastically about new music last autumn. You may recall that the singer had described a new album as being “already finished...it’s in the bag” shortly after the reunion was confirmed. But it seems this was Liam’s idea of a joke.

By November he had backtracked: “I was fucking joking remember them and the reason being because everyone is a little uptight these days I’m sorry if I have upset anyone but fuck me it was a laugh.”

So the message is clear: fans should make the most of the reunion because it may not happen again.

McKinlay also talked about the one overlooked aspect of the tour – how quickly it sold out, not just in the UK, but around the world (including the US, a place we’ve all long assumed is immune to the Gallaghers’ charms).

“Probably the biggest and most pleasing surprise of the reunion announcement is how huge it was internationally," he said. "Honestly, we knew it would be big here, and that doesn’t take much intuition. But looking outside the UK, we knew they had a strong fanbase, we did all the stats.

"We were quite cautious about what that would mean when it came to people actually buying tickets but we were just bowled over by how huge it was.”

"We could have sold out half-a-dozen Rose Bowls in Pasadena and probably eight MetLife stadiums in New York in a day. We saw the ticket stats, we were watching what was happening and the demand was way beyond our expectations.”

Tony McCarroll, the original drummer with Oasis, has broken cover and penned a message to the band on Instagram.

No, he isn’t begging for his old job back. It’s a bit more considered and thoughtful than that. Complete with a pic of himself back in his younger days, McCarroll wrote: “Almost a lifetime ago, a few Burnage lads got together and created something special. Something that time can’t out date, the start of a wave that’s evidently still rolling with the last real band before the world changed.”

“Oasis captured the time and minds of the people; we were the same as them, and they felt it. The connection. Over the last year or two, I've noticed something new in the gig and QnA crowds.... youth. The circle has started again lads. A new generation ready to start a journey of listening.”

“The circle has started again lads. A new generation ready to start a journey of listening,” he said. “Actually, I’m a bit jealous of that blank canvas they’re about to start on.”

“Lads, the world is excited to see this, it’s all people are talking about. The time ‘feels’ right, I can’t wait to see how it all goes down,” he expressed.

“Liam, Noel, Bone, Gem…. (I better stop there as I’m not sure who else) Good luck with everything, and don’t forget to stop and take it in! If the drummer fancies a stage partner for Supersonic at Heaton Park, give us a buzz ;)”

McCarroll, of course, played on the band’s debut album, Definitely Maybe and the subsequent singles Whatever and Some Might Say, before being dumped in April 1995. By common consent his technique was fairly basic and with Noel wanting to record more adventurous material on (What’s The Story?) Morning Glory, he was given his P45, reputedly on the day the last Oasis recording he featured on, Some Might Say, hit Number One.

In 1999 he sued the band for unpaid royalties. Originally McCarroll claimed £18 million, a fifth of what the band had earned up to that point, but in the end he reached an out of court settlement for a mere £550,000.

Since then the drummer has set up a studio in Denton, East Manchester, helping young bands take their first steps in recording, as well as publishing a memoir of his Oasis days called Oasis: The Truth in 2010.

There’s no news yet on who will behind the kit come July and the Oasis reunion shows. The likelihood of it being McCarroll is virtually nil.

It’s been seven months since the announcement that Oasis were reforming, the ensuing bunfight for tickets and the whole controversy over ‘dynamic’ pricing. But now Noel Gallagher has finally broken his silence about that whole debacle.

It comes in a new interview he’s given to the esteemed photographer and fellow Manchester City fan, Kevin Cummins, for his book Oasis: The Masterplan. In it, the guitarist said that the sheer scale of the demand for tickets surprised him.

“I thought it’d be a big deal, but I was a bit taken aback by just how much of a big deal it was,” he said.

Cummins also asked him what his favourite Oasis song is. “Can I have more than one? ‘Supersonic’, ‘Some Might Say’, ‘Live Forever’ and ‘Rock’n’Roll Star,” Noel replied.

It marks the first public statement by Noel since the reunion was confirmed. Neither Gallagher has given an interview with any media outlet recently. This seems to be a deliberate policy to preserve the brothers’ detente, according to Liam, anyway.

“We don’t want to do interviews coz we’re scared of the media asking us intrusive questions and trying to pick holes in our relationship,” he posted on Twitter/ X last October.

Meanwhile, we’re still no closer to finding out who else will be lining up alongside Noel and Liam come July. Last month ‘sources working closely with close the band’ suggested the reformed Oasis would include Andy Bell on bass, both Gem Archer and Bonehead on guitars with stalwart session musician Joey Waronker (who’s played with REM and Beck) filling in on drums. But none of those four have been confirmed as yet.

The band start their Live ‘25 reunion tour in Cardiff Principality Stadium on Friday 4 July. By then it will be almost sixteen years since the Gallaghers were last on stage together.

The UK’s competition watchdog says that Ticketmaster “may have misled Oasis fans” during the initial bunfight over tickets for the reunion tour last year.

But this isn’t regarding the controversial practice of ‘dynamic’ pricing, which led to some fans forking out several times the amount the tickets were nominally being sold for.

Instead, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has suggested Ticketmaster could have broken consumer protection law by selling ‘platinum’ tickets that retailed for two and a half times the standard price but which came with no additional benefits.

"This risked giving consumers the misleading impression that platinum tickets were better,” the CMA said, updating its investigation into Ticketmaster. The CMA has stated that it is looking for changes to the way the platform provides information to punters, advice which Ticketmaster has said it “welcomes.”

"At Ticketmaster, we strive to provide the best ticketing platform through a simple, transparent and consumer-friendly experience," a spokesperson told the BBC. “We welcome the CMA's input in helping make the industry even better for fans."

And whilst there’s no news yet regarding the issue of dynamic pricing, the CMA did criticise Ticketmaster, saying it was difficult for Oasis fans to make "informed choices". One example it gives is that punters were not aware there were "two categories of standing tickets at different prices, with all of the cheaper standing tickets sold first.”

This meant "many fans waiting in a lengthy queue without understanding what they would be paying and then having to decide whether to pay a higher price than they expected," the CMA continued.

Since last year, Ticketmaster has made some changes to its platform, but the CMA is not satisfied with these: "the CMA does not currently consider these changes are sufficient to address its concerns," it says.

"We now expect Ticketmaster to work with us to address these concerns so, in future, fans can make well-informed decisions when buying tickets," said Hayley Fletcher, Interim Senior Director of Consumer Protection. "All ticketing websites should check they are complying with the law and treating their customers fairly. When businesses get it right, consumers benefit – and that’s the best outcome for everyone."

So Ticketmaster very much isn't off the hook yet. The CMA investigation is not yet complete, and this story will doubtless develop further, possibly before Oasis play their first gig for 16 years on Cardiff on 4 July.

Liam Gallagher has issued a response to reports over the weekend that Ticketmaster has cancelled thousands of Oasis tickets in a new crackdown on touts. And the fans who have protested on social media that they’ve had their tickets erroneously cancelled will be disappointed. It’s nothing to do with him, apparently...

The singer took to Twitter/X to respond to a fan who had asked “Liam what do you think of the ticket situation? Thinking fans are bots and getting their money returned?”

Not much it seems. Gallagher’s reply was: “I don’t make the rules. We’re trying to do the right thing. It is what it is, I’m the singer. Get off my case.”

Ticketmaster said at the start of the whole Oasis tickets debacle last September that any tickets being resold on a platform that wasn’t Twickets would be cancelled. Fair enough, of course. But it seems that they have been applying this policy over-officiously and many ordinary punters have had their legitimately-purchased tickets cancelled.

However, a spokesperson for the platform has now responded: “For ticket purchasers who believe they have had tickets refunded in error, refer to the email sent by the relevant agent when informed.”

“Expert Abuse and Fraud teams have reviewed all sales and identified any made by bots. We cannot go into more detail, as we do not want bot-using touts to have any further information on the process.”

As for Liam, the singer also answered another fan’s query about possible guests at the gigs this summer. Asked if anyone would be joining them on stage, Gallagher Junior simply gave a four-word reply: “None of that nonsense”.

Well, exactly. Even during their heyday, Oasis never indulged in any of that on-stage celebrity back-slapping stuff (with the notable exception of Stone Roses guitarist John Squire at Knebworth). It would be a major surprise if they were to start now. Just as it would be a shock if they were to suddenly incorporate backing dancers, or any of the other various accoutrements of the modern stadium show.

Guests or no guests, what is certain to be the most talked-about tour of the year kicks off in Cardiff on July 4, before heading to Manchester, Wembley, Edinburgh and Dublin. After that the reformed band head off to the US, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Argentina, Chile and Brazil.

“That music comes from a long, long time ago. Long enough for it to feel like it was another person in another place... like it’s not really me.”

Nick McCabe, guitarist with The Verve when they were still a going concern, is talking about his former band and the re-release of their 2004 greatest hits collection, This is Music: The Singles.

“At the same time, I am aware that time can bring perspective to bear,” he adds with a grin. “As a 53-year-old man, I can look back and think, ‘Not bad... not bad at all’. There are some painful memories, too. I was sacked in 1995 and I knew that I had to clean my act up - I was enjoying myself a bit too much! But that break allowed me to go away, look at life, look at myself, all the rest of it. Then, when I was invited back into the band, we made Urban Hymns.”

Urban Hymns was the Wigan band’s third album and one that allowed them to soar in the same bright, Britpop skies as the era’s linchpins, Oasis and Blur. Songs like The Drugs Don’t Work and Bitter Sweet Symphony were not only huge hits, but gave Britpop - a term McCabe isn’t particularly comfortable with - a ragged, soulful wisdom that was sadly lacking from much of the late-’90s music.

It seems rather bizarre then that, during McCabe’s enforced hiatus, it was futuristic digital technology that helped him find inspiration and a way forward. The producer Owen Morris (Oasis, Ash, Madness and the Verve’s second album, A Northern Soul) once described McCabe as “the most gifted musician I’ve ever worked with,” but also admitted that he was a producer’s nightmare because he would never play the same piece of music twice.

“I suppose I took the idea of spontaneity to its extreme,” McCabe laughs. “I love the idea of a live band, feeding off each other and the audience, and I thought every bit of music had to be ‘in the moment’.

“One of my favourite bands is Can, well-known for the improvisational nature of their music. Well-known for getting into the studio and letting the tape run and run and run. But then I thought about their working process and realised that after they’d collected all the tapes together, they would start the editing process. Looking for individual pockets of magic.

“During that period when I’d been sacked, I started playing around with things like Pro Tools and realised that I didn’t need to create perfection every time I plugged in my guitar. Yes, I’d always wanted Verve’s music to have a spontaneous, natural feel, but it wasn’t a crime if I got a bit of help from technology. I started to look at making an album like editing a film... it didn’t have to all be done in one flawless take.”

In that sense, did technology change how McCabe played the guitar? Has his playing continued to change? If he was recording some of those classic Verve singles today, would the guitar parts be different?

“It’s that old adage, isn’t it,” he laughs. “You spend six months making a record and you think you’re making the best music you’ve ever made in your life. Then the album is released and you think it’s the worst music you’ve ever made. Considering how fucked we were, I think we can all look back with a certain amount of pride on This is Music, but I still feel that the stuff I’m making today is much better. I’ve been working with Pete and Simon from the band, plus a whole bunch of other great artists. I don’t want to just sit here and remember what I’ve already done... I want to imagine all the stuff I can still do.”

McCabe didn’t actually pick up a guitar until he was 15. Prior to that, he’d played brass in the school band and noodled around on a Roland SH-101 picked up at a local junk shop. But the minute his dad brought back a slightly knackered acoustic, he was hooked.

“I had older brothers who were listening to Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, but I seemed to get naturally caught up in punk and post-punk: PiL, Stranglers, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magazine, Joy Division. Guitarists like John McGeogh [PiL, Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees], Hugh Cornwell [Stranglers], Keith Levine [Pil, The Clash] and Geordie Walker [Killing Joke]. When I heard Levine and John Lydon talking about PiL, they were namechecking Can, Captain Beefheart and King Tubby, so I started investigating all of that. Hearing stuff and thinking, ‘What the fuck is this?’ Bands who were taking the guitar to all these strange places.

“Me, Richard, Pete and Simon were together at sixth form college, but we all came from different musical backgrounds. Pete was a Santana fan; Si was listening to folk; Richard was apparently a Bros fan but found what he was after with the Stone Roses. Put us all together with a bit of Funkadelic, early hip-hop, Northern Soul from Wigan Casino, the Stooges, the Mondays and it came out as Verve.

“Equipment-wise, I had a Marshall in the early days, but Mesa Boogie became my thing ’cos I liked the sound of the active EQ. I bought multiple versions of the Ibanez FL-303 flanger pedal, an Alesis Quadraverb, a Gibson 335, a black Strat and a 65 Jazzmaster that I picked up for 75 quid from a local secondhand shop. Ah, those were the days. I’ve always had a few synths knocking around, too, and I’ve gone back to messing about with electronic music... back to my days with the SH-101. Platform-wise, I moved to Logic after Pro Tools, but if I was starting out today, I would probably go for Reaper. I like how it works.

“All of the tech stuff has come in handy because I now teach music technology and talk to a lot of students who want to make dance music. Yes, I do come across a lot of young musicians who are caught up in specific genres - house, drum ‘n’ bass or what have you - but there will always be people who want to look beyond the usual boundaries. It’s quite reassuring, really, knowing that music is constantly searching for something new.

“If I think back to my own childhood, that was part of the job if you were a music fan. A magpie mentality. I remember going to the library and seeing albums by Miles Davis, Tomita, Faust, Yes... bringing them home and, even though I might not have completely understood them, there was something that made me want to listen.”

Despite his old bandmate, Richard Ashcroft, being out and about this summer on the massive Oasis reunion tour, McCabe offers little more than a slightly apologetic shrug when I mention the current vogue for all things Britpop.

“I could never see the connection with the Verve, really. I had nothing against Britpop at all and there was some amazing music that came out of it, but it wasn’t the sound that we wanted to make. In the early days, it was actually Oasis supporting us, but that changed very quickly. I suppose it was easy to look at what was happening to Oasis and think, ‘Yeah, I want a bit of that’. There’d always been a pop element to us - even when we were making eight-minute songs - and it wasn’t much of a jump to get to something like Urban Hymns.

“Problem is that it’s very easy to get trapped by a genre. I have to be very careful here, because I’m not talking about anyone or any band specifically. It’s just that, personally, I’ve always preferred a no-filter, omnivorous approach to music. Take anything that comes your way, stuff it into the mix and see what happens. That’s still how I look at music and... it still makes me happy.”

The 20th anniversary edition of The Verve’s This is Music: The Singles - including the original eight-minute version of She’s A Superstar - is out now

Nick McCabe’s Top 5 guitarists

Jimi Hendrix

“Why? Because he’s Jimi Hendrix. Prior to Jimi, the guitar had rules; after Jimi, no rules. Plus, he was a Coronation Street fan! Have a listen to Third Stone from the Sun; there’s a touch of the Corrie theme tune in there. He used to love watching it on tour.”

Eddie Hazel

“Parliament, Funkadelic... I guess he was Hendrix’s first heir apparent. Taking what had gone before him, then adding his own mind blowing take on it.”

Robin Guthrie

“Bit of a wild tangent from the last two, but I’ve always thought that Guthrie is one of those amazing guitarists that slipped through the cracks. People didn’t realise how good he was. He turned the sound of the guitar into a language!”

Vini Reilly and all the post-punk lot like John McGeogh, Keith Levine and Geordie Walker.

“I remember hearing Jaz Coleman [Killing Joke vocalist] talking about Geordie and saying that he was able to add a little poison to the melody. A wonderful description!”

The Barry White Guitar Pit

“Bit of a cheat, this one. So many great names like Melvin Ragin, David T Walker. I’ll chuck Dennis Coffey in there, too, for the same reasons: texture, right amount of twist, tasty lines that are neither lead nor rhythm, but do the job of both.”

Could one of rock’s current, hottest yet-to-be-revealed secrets be out of the bag? That’s the tempting proposition being served up by ex-Happy Monday’s twosome Shaun Ryder and Bez who may have blabbed a little too much regarding the current schedule of their good friend and Mantra Of The Cosmos drummer Zak Starkey.

Starkey – the son of Beatles legend Ringo, of course – regularly plays alongside ex-Mondays members Ryder and Bez as part of Mantra Of The Cosmos, the duo’s side-project alongside (ex-Oasis and Ride) guitarist Andy Bell.

Two days ago, however, the band were forced to cancel a planned secret gig in London due to Starkey falling foul of a blood clot in his leg.

Speaking to the Daily Star‘s Wired column concerning Starkey’s condition Ryder said: “He’s got his leg up and he’s got to keep completely still,” he explained. "My nana had blood clots and she ended up with both legs took off,” he elaborated.

"I've had me hip done and had to wear f****** tight stockings so I didn't get blood clots, so I'm gonna get Zak some tight Mantra stockings."

"He might look sexy as well,” added Bez.

However, with the band recently reaffirming their connection with Oasis’ Noel Gallagher – Gallagher joined the band for their single Domino Bones (Gets Dangerous) – and Starkey having played with Oasis previously, the conversation turned to whether Starkey would be well enough to play come their reunion gigs this summer…

When asked about the possibility, Shaun replied: "You gotta ask him that. We sort of know...” before defusing the tension with “Zak is next level and he plays guitar as well as drums. If you ask Zak, he’ll say his first instrument is guitar. He’s really f__ talented…”

Starkey joined Oasis 2004 and played on the band’s final two studio albums Don’t Believe The Truth from 2005 and Dig Out Your Soul in 2008 before being replaced by Chris Sharrock for the band’s gigs immediately prior to their split.

It’s therefore predicted that either Starkey or Sharrock will be the most likely candidate invited back onto the Oasis drum stool.

And with Mantra’s Andy Smith already in the frame for rejoining Oasis on guitar and Starkey, Smith and Gallagher having just worked together on a track, that rumoured Oasis 2025 line-up might just have taken one more step towards reality.

Liam Gallagher has responded to criticism from Glen Matlock about Oasis in the only way he knows how: in a short, forthright, hilarious statement on social media.

Matlock, you may recall, remarked last week that he wasn’t exactly thrilled about the prospect of seeing Oasis live on the reunion tour. The Sex Pistols bassist told NME: “I’ve always seen Oasis as a bit Status Quo. To hear one song once was enough. It’s a bit like that with Oasis: to hear one song once is enough. I just find them kind of samey."

"I know the guys. Nice blokes," he went on. "I’ve gotta be careful what I say because I bump into Noel quite a lot. He lives around the corner from me. I think Liam is fantastic. He sings great – he’s like Johnny Rotten but can carry a tune. He’s got a magnetic stage personality: he can just stand there and it’s riveting. The rest of the guys? No. I think they’re boring live. I’d never go to see ‘em.”

In one sense Matlock is right. Oasis do – it must be said – have a performance style that can be politely termed ‘no frills’: standing still and just playing the songs. But it’s served them well. You couldn’t imagine Liam racing up and down the stage, desperately trying to elicit audience participation. Nor would you want him to either. That would be so un-Liam.

Anyway, when asked on Twitter/X about Matlock’s comments, the frontman fired back all in caps: "F*** HIM SID WAS THE PISTOLS".

It’s not the first time Liam has reacted to negative responses to the Oasis reunion. Back in September Fontaines DC were asked by Studio Brussel if they were excited by their return. “I couldn’t really give a shit, to be honest,” replied guitarist Carlos O’Connell.

Bassist Conor Deegan III was equally unequivocal: "I’m not excited about it either, to be honest. I feel like we get caught in the last era – like the ’10s – and into such a nostalgic thing that we’re forgetting to make new things."

Liam’s reply to this, via Twitter/X, was priceless: "F*** them little sp***bubbles I’ve seen better dressed ROADIES". When another fan defended Fontaines and said they thought they were great, the Oasis frontman hit another exquisite verbal volley: "They look like a s*** EMF".

Ah, to paraphrase Carly Simon, nobody does it better. Makes you feel sad for the rest.

Ah you gotta love Liam Gallagher, not least for his way with a withering – and hilarious – putdown.

Inevitably, one of Liam’s gems has come via social media and an interaction with fans that took a somewhat bizarre turn.

It started when a fan shared a pic on Twitter/X of Liam asking ‘who is this? Wrong answers only’. Liam replied with “The vicar of f***ing dibley.”

Then a fan replied to his comment by saying “listen to the cure,” to which Gallagher responded with “I’m not depressed.”

For some reason this less than shocking revelation seemed to surprise one user who asked how he could be “hating on The Cure,” to which the singer responded: “I don’t hate them I just rather listen to two foxes shagging in the bushes at 5.30 am.”

Brilliant.

It must be said that whilst Liam isn’t a fan, his brother has actually collaborated with Robert Smith in the past. Indeed the Cure singer remixed a track on Noel’s 2023 album, Council Skies.

In an interview last year, the guitarist recalled how the remix came about. “Because the song (‘Pretty Boy’) sounds like The Cure I was like, ‘Does Robert Smith do remixes?’ I got hold of his email, the first line was, ‘Hi Robert, it’s Noel Gallagher’. I thought at that point he’d go, ‘Fuck that c**t’. He emailed back with ‘Send me the track’. I did and fuck me – if I thought it sounded like The Cure when it went, it certainly did when it came back!”

“It wasn’t until I played it to a few people when someone said, ‘That’s one of Oasis, one of The Smiths and one of The Cure on the same fucking track’ and I was like, ‘That’s far out! What a mad idea!’ I’d never met him but I’ve been such an admirer of his tunes since Boys Don’t Cry.”

In other Oasis news, it turns out that the new album, you know the one that Liam has been posting about, the one that, according to his previous statements is “in the bag” and “already finished”? Yeah, that one. Well, it turns out it doesn’t exist. The singer was joking all along.

I know. Hilarious, eh?

Over the weekend an official fan Twitter/X account suggested that the brothers were “working intently” on the album and were in contact “nearly every day”. At which point, Liam must have realised his little prank had gone too far and wrote: “I was fucking joking remember them and the reason being because everyone is a little uptight these days I’m sorry if I have upset anyone but fuck me it was a laugh.”

After responding to a fan who said the reunion is “enough”, Liam wrote: “Exactly people always want more let’s just get in a big stadium and go ape shit and see what happens after that you with me or what”.

Noel Gallagher has called it the “world’s best” electric guitar, but maybe his 1997 Silver Sparkle Gibson Les Paul Florentine that he sold in the ‘90s is simply too good to hold onto, because it has just been sold again at auction, with the BBC reporting that it fetched £226,000.

The auction, hosted via Propstore, saw a cornucopia of Oasis-related ephemera go under the hammer. This was an occasion for those of deep pockets to bid for frontman Liam Gallagher’s tambourine, or for one of Noel’s old golf buggies, refinished with a hotrod paint job – just the thing for a trip down to Waitrose.

But it was Noel’s Les Paul Florentine that was the star of the show. It was expected to fetch between £200,000 and £400,000. The question is why this guitar keeps changing hands? It was auctioned as recently as 2022. Back then, Propstore had estimated its value between £300,000 to £500,000.

With the vintage market overheating, and with the fever for all things Oasis after the Gallagher brothers finally buried the hatchet and announced their reunion shows, it is counterintuitive that it should fall in value.

Its provenance is unimpeachable. Made by the Gibson Custom Shop in 1997, it was used on Oasis’ third studio album, Be Here Now, and with a Silver Sparkle finish it was always going to be a touring guitar. Gallagher took it everywhere.

He also couldn’t be more effusive about its capabilities, telling Spin that it was the best guitar in the world.

“That’s the best guitar in the world,” he said. “It’s not one of the best guitars; it’s the best guitar. The thing about that guitar is it’s got that extra... you know what I mean? When you’ve got everything turned all the way up, this one gives you more. It goes to 11.”

With Gallagher enjoying a number of collaborations with Gibson and Epiphone – the latter releasing a superlative version of his Riviera – perhaps we might see a replica of this as a future signature guitar.

It would make a neat project for the Custom Shop’s Murphy Lab team to get their teeth into. Although you could see a future in which a Silver Sparkle Les Paul Florentine with Gallagher’s name on the headstock could be a top-selling Epiphone guitar.

In either scenario, the Metalheadz sticker that Gallagher applied to the original, would surely be available inside the guitar case. And would any player be brave enough to stick it onto the front of their guitar?

Gallagher did that in the ‘90s. Things were different back then. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Oasis are back. Liam says even on a bad day Oasis still “wipe the floor” with most other bands out there today.

In news that will surprise precisely no-one at all, Liam Gallagher has claimed that when Oasis finally do play those reunion gigs next year they will sound as good as they were back in the 1990s.

How do we know this? Inevitably, via Twitter/X. He posted on the social media platform: “Got asked a ridiculous question yesterday so are OASIS gonna be as good as you once were because when some bands get back together there not as good I said listen here you C*** even on our bad day we’ll still wipe the floor with majority of bands out there.”

Well, what else would you expect? If ever there’s a rock star who’s lived a life unburdened by self-doubt it’s Liam Gallagher.

It’s not the first time Liam has taken to Twitter/X this week. When asked by a fan about how he feels about the new songs Noel has written for a new Oasis album next year, Liam simply wrote: “blown away.”

This new Oasis album is as yet unconfirmed. But we do know, via Liam again, that something is in the air. Back in September when another fan asked “Is it true that Oasis will have a new album???”, Liam replied: “Yep it’s already finished.”

Meanwhile the tour keeps on growing. Oasis last week confirmed five South American gigs for next November, with the band playing dates in Santiago, Chile, Buenos Aires in Argentina and Sao Paulo in Brazil. They announced the latter with the statement: "People of Brazil. Carnival has come early. Fix up. Look sharp. Oasis will see you soon."

With European, North American and Australian dates also now confirmed, the Oasis comeback tour is almost fully in place and with the prospect of a new album too, this looks likely to be the story that will dominate most of 2025. Whether the Gallaghers will be able to get through an entire year in each other’s company without combusting is another matter. It’ll be fascinating, whatever.

Lloyds Bank has revealed that “hundreds” of Oasis fans have been hit by scammers, with an average of £346 being lost per person according to the bank’s data. Many have been swindled out of far higher amounts.

It seems that these originated online, most coming via fake adverts and social media posts that cropped up during or after the bunfight for Oasis tickets in late August/early September. Fans are instructed to pay upfront for tickets and then, mysteriously, the seller disappears.

More than nine in 10 of the cases reported by the Lloyds group – which includes Halifax and Bank Of Scotland - started online, with the “vast majority” originating on Facebook, which includes Facebook Marketplace.

“A simple search of Facebook reveals numerous unofficial groups have been set up, many boasting tens of thousands of members, dedicated to buying and selling tickets for the Oasis tour. This is despite Meta’s own commerce policy stating that the sale of concert tickets is ‘not allowed’ on the platform,” said a bank spokesperson.

According to Lloyds’ data, on the day Oasis tickets went online (August 31) the amounts spent on concert tickets “soared”. Fans spent an average of £563 per debit card transaction on one of the UK’s biggest ticket-selling sites. By way of a comparison on the day tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour went on sale that figure was just £342.

Lloyds fraud prevention director, Liz Ziegler said: “Predictably fraudsters wasted no time in targeting loyal Oasis fans as they scrambled to pick up tickets for next year’s must-see reunion tour.”

“Buying directly from reputable, authorised retailers is the only way to guarantee you’re paying for a genuine ticket. If you’re asked to pay via bank transfer, particularly by a seller you’ve found on social media, that should immediately set alarm bells ringing.”

Lloyds have warned that these sort of ticket scams tend to occur in two waves – the first when tickets are released for sale, and the second as the event date approaches.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, have issued a statement saying that it was “committed to protecting our users from fraudulent activities”, adding that it advised users to report posts they thought might be a scam so that it could take action.

One thing worth bearing in mind is that Lloyds’ data only goes up to September 25 - the bank have said that the number of online Oasis scammers is likely to be even higher now.

It’s sometime in the late ‘80s and Noel Gallagher, a guitar tech for Madchester psych-pop band the Inspiral Carpets, is in the back of a tour bus, skinning up and chatting with David Batchelor, the band’s sound engineer.

Despite their age difference – Noel is in his early 20s, Batchelor in his 50s – the two men share a love of the same bands, and Noel has a respect for the older man’s past production work.

Batchelor produced albums by the likes of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band (SAHB) and Scottish punks the Skids. He was the man behind the desk for Skids’ hits like Into The Valley and The Saints Are Coming and his work with the SAHB was an influence on everyone from Nick Cave to Joe Elliott, Bon Scott to Robert Smith.

“I’ve written some songs,” Noel tells him, pulling a demo tape out of his pocket.

Dave Batchelor remembers playing that tape and being bowled over. “Right away,” says Batchelor, “it was there. That cassette was gold. I loved it.”

Noel appreciated Dave’s enthusiasm. Sitting in the back of the tour bus the two men passed a spliff around and Noel told him about this band he was joining, with his brother Liam on vocals. “Look, if I get a deal,” said Noel, “I'll get you in – you can produce.”

It was a pipe dream, just talk.

“But he was true to his word,” says Batchelor. “That's exactly what happened.”

David Batchelor should have been the producer of the first Oasis album, Definitely Maybe. Instead, he was fired before the album was finished and re-recorded with Owen Morris at the helm.

Batchelor has subsequently been cast in most accounts of the Oasis story as an old guy out of his depth with one of the hottest British bands of the 90s. In fact, although it didn’t work out, Batchelor was perfectly placed to produce the first Oasis album.

The songs that Noel Gallagher had been writing borrowed from the history of rock’n’roll – and Batchelor had been playing in bands since the birth of rock music itself.

In the '60s, his band the Bo-Weavles gigged four nights a week in the clubs and dancehalls of Scotland, playing covers of songs by the Byrds and the Beatles, the Association, Chuck Berry, and the hits of Tamla and Stax.

In the late '60s, as music got heavier, The Bo-Weavles developed into Tear Gas, influenced by Cream and Hendrix, Batchelor writing the songs with powerhouse guitarist Alistair ‘Zal’ Cleminson, and joined by Ted McKenna, Hugh McKenna and Chris Glen.

In Batchelor’s words, “Tear Gas could play like fuck”. They were a great live band and they could play anything – jazz, rock, soul – and that was reflected in the name they chose when they hooked up with singer Alex Harvey: The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

With Harvey up front, singer Batchelor – who’d become the vocalist when their original singer dropped out on the eve of a German tour – moved into production, where he had a front-row seat on the development of SAHB.

On the first day of rehearsals, Alex Harvey suggested playing I Just Want To Make Love To You, the old Willie Dixon number popularised by Muddy Waters and Etta James. Dave Batchelor remembers it like this:

Zal started playing the riff.

Alex said, “Turn it down a bit.”

Zal turned down and kept playing.

Alex said, “Turn down a bit more.”

Zal turned down.

“A bit more,” said Harvey.

“A little bit more.”

“A bit more…”

“Eventually,” says Batchelor, “you could almost hear the wood of the guitar as loud as what was coming out of the cabinet.

"Zal has got the loudest fingers in rock’n’roll. No matter what level he plays at, there’s an energy in his playing. It's just fiery. He's one of the top players in the world, I believe.”

That day, with Alex Harvey forcing Cleminson to turn down, he says, focussed Zal on “recognising the essence of a part – it's not always about blowing the back wall out.”

It was a lesson that Batchelor took with him 20 years later into the Definitely Maybe sessions.

Except that Oasis really just wanted to blow the back wall out.

Batchelor was assistant producer on SAHB’s second 1973 album Next and produced all of the band’s albums until 1977. In 1978, Virgin asked Batchelor to produce another band with an inspirational guitarist: Dunfermline’s The Skids. Into The Valley, written by guitarist and band leader Stuart Adamson, with lyrics by Richard Jobson, was a hit single in waiting.

Opening with a reverberating bassline and a rabble-rousing chorus, it was a perfect three-minute punk-pop song that sounded uniquely Scottish.

Skids roadie Clive Ford remembers the impact that Dave Batchelor had on the song. “I can remember the first time Dave met the band,” he says. “He was in the rehearsal room, and he’d been there less than five minutes. The band we're doing Into The Valley and he goes: ‘Hold on a minute. Can I make a couple of suggestions?’ And he just chopped the song around. And it was for the better.”

“Into The Valley wouldn't have been a hit as it stood,” says Richard Jobson. “Not in a million years.”

It went to no.10 in the UK charts.

Producing the Skids, and working with a band leader as perfectionist and principled as Stuart Adamson was not dissimilar from working with Noel Gallagher.

“Stuart wanted to keep the recording as close as possible to what we did live,” says Skids bassist Bill Simpson. “We only had one guitarist: Stuart. But obviously, when you’re in the recording studio, you have to have overdubs and layers of guitars and harmonies. Stuart just didn’t like it.”

Eventually, with the album almost finished, Adamson walked out on the session. He wanted their live sound - or the sound in his head. And he didn’t want anyone messing with it.

The engineer on the session, Mick Glossop, says Stuart Adamson’s reaction is not unusual. “That’s a common, and not unexpected, type of reaction that you might get from someone who’s unfamiliar with how you make records.”

Fast-forward to 1993. After years of doing live sound for bands like Inspiral Carpets, Big Country, Ray Davies and more, Batchelor finds himself in Monnow Valley Studios, formerly the rehearsal space for nearby Rockfield Studios, with Oasis.

It went wrong before they even got to the studio.

“One of the main initial hurdles for me was the drummer,” says Batchelor. In the studio, the band would run through a song, and the producer would spot sections that could be lengthened, shortened, or ditched.

“Their drummer Tony McCarroll – he was young, a really nice guy. His instincts were spot on. A nice player with a natural, good feel in his playing,” says Dave. “But getting him to change his part, or the arrangement of the song, proved a hurdle for him.”

Batchelor suggested that they have at least a week of rehearsals before going into studio. But Noel disagreed. “So we had two days of rehearsals.”

The next problem for the producer was the engineer. Dave Scott had recorded demos with the band at The Pink Museum in Liverpool.

“He'd done a demo with them,” says Batchelor. “A really good demo. I liked what he did, but he was just taking over the whole thing.”

“I personally felt that Dave Batchelor was unhappy because Noel had chosen me to be the engineer,” Dave Scott told Oasis Recording Information. “As producer he should have had the say.”

The engineer and producer just didn’t gel. “I couldn’t connect with him artistically or technically,” said Scott.

Batchelor felt like the engineer was trying to lead the sessions. “He was plonking himself in the studio and just throwing everything at the guys,” he says.

“‘Okay, we'll do this, we'll do that’. And I don't mind, I've been there many times, anyone can come up with ideas – you recognise a good one and you go with it – but this was just to the point where I had no input. It got out of hand. And they were smoking – just out their heads most of the time.”

Dave Scott says he was fired over the tempo of Slide Away. When the band couldn’t nail the tempo Batchelor wanted, the engineer stepped in. It was one interference too many. “I said, ‘No, sorry – we'll need to get somebody else in,’” says Batchelor.

But he was starting to feel that it was slipping away. “I'd been out of the producing business for some time,” he says. “I wasn't really clued up on what the best studios were, who were the current top engineers, who were good guys. You need to be on top of all that.

“I wasn’t really up to speed to take on what they had to offer. I was busking it and relying on other things to be right, without knowing enough to say, 'No, we're going to that studio. We're going to use that engineer' – that kind of detail. That way you can sit back and relax and focus on the music.”

And when it came to his vision for the album he was thrown a little bit by comments Noel had made about his influences.

Somewhere on tour with the Inspiral Carpets, they had sat down at a piano. “Noel was talking about how he loves the Bee Gees and Burt Bacharach and stuff like that,” says Batchelor, “so I showed him how to play This Guy's In Love With You on a hotel piano. He picked it up and off he went. It was good craic.”

(Later, Gallagher based his song Half The World Away on the Bacharach song – “It sounds exactly the same,” he commented. “I'm surprised he hasn't sued me yet” – and Noel played the drums on the track himself, apparently frustrated at McCarroll’s inability to nail it.)

When they went into the studio, those references stuck with Batchelor and threw him off-course. “You obviously have to have a vision,” he says. “And that vision was kind of disturbed a little bit by the Bee Gees and Burt Bacharach.

"I saw a strong song element to whatever he might want to do. So that was part of my thinking.”

The replacement engineer [presumably Roy Spong. Previous credits: The Pogues, Kirsty MacColl, the Pet Shop Boys] wasn’t ideal either. “He played me his show reel, and it’s as pristine as you could ever imagine.” So suddenly Batchelor was having to push against the engineer as well. “He wasn't really feeling it.”

And then, he says, he “made a schoolboy error”. At the mixing stage, he picked out a song that he felt was a single. “I thought, ‘I'll impress the record company. We'll mix this first, get it rocking’,” he says.

“But I was never really into the song and the proof was in the pudding because it never really happened – it didn't make on to the album. But, in a sense, it was my downfall in the eyes of [Creation records boss] Alan McGee. McGee comes in and they were listening to some of the stuff that wasn’t quite Oasis as we know them, and this track – it was rocking, it was good, but it wasn't a killer song.

“They were all in the other room, and the old white powder comes out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and I couldn't tune into it,” he says.

“I mean, I've taken the odd line on tour or whatever, but I've never been into coke at all – I've seen so much damage from it. So I couldn't tune in and I know what that's like: When the posse is taking cocaine, if you're not joining in, you're on the outside. The spell was broken. I got my P45.”

Noel claimed later that he sacked Batchelor. “We had the same record collection,” Noel told Mojo in 1995. “But he’s so old – he’s in his 50s, does front-of-house for Ray Davies and stuff – and I’m like 27.

"When it came to sitting at the mixing-desk, I’m pissed and saying, ‘Let’s get a bit mad here, let’s really let go and be young and compress the shit out of this so that the speakers blow up’, he’d go, [stubborn old-timer], ‘Nope, ’cos this is the way we done it in our day, son.’”

Noel just wanted to blow the back wall out. Like Stuart Adamson, he wanted the live sound he heard in rehearsals and onstage.

In his book Creation Stories, Alan McGee says that he pulled the plug on the Batchelor sessions: “Noel was innocent at the time and said, ‘Oh we’ll get it right by the second album’. There was no way I was going to take that risk – most of the time you only get one chance. We did keep Slide Away from those sessions.”

McGee put it down to Batchelor recording the band separately: “They were trying to record the instruments separately, something that never works for our bands. It was another of our links to the 1960s: our bands worked best when recorded live.” Oasis went to Sawmills Studios in Cornwall with Owen Morris and did just that.

The Monnow Valley sessions were released this year on the 30th-anniversary release of Definitely Maybe. What is most striking about them, after three decades of claims that they were too polished or sterile, is how similar they are to the finished album. Less overdriven, less loud, yes, but incredibly similar. The Dave Batchelor sessions had been a clear dry run.

“I stand by this statement,” says Batchelor: “They probably learned a lot from going into the studio with me. They would have gained a lot of ammunition, a lot of knowledge. They would be in a better place to decide how it should sound. And the way they made it sound is fantastic.”

John Cornfield, co-owner of Sawmills, seems to back that up: "They just went in there and bang, bang, bang - three takes or so and nailed it. You could tell they had played them a load of times as there was no messing about," he said.

Batchelor is philosophical. “I'd be sitting there, listening to what we’d recorded and it wouldn't be floating my boat either,” he says.

“There's stages that you need to go through to make it really take off. I wasn't given that opportunity. The confidence link had broken, and you can never repair that kind of thing.

“Maybe I wouldn't have been able to do them justice – but I might have been able to tell Liam to stop holding those sneary notes for so long. You know, how he goes ‘Nyyyyyyyaaaaaaahh’ and he keeps holding on and holding on?

“I mean: he sounds great. But Jesus Christ.”

The Definitely Maybe 30th Anniversary Edition, featuring the Monnow Valley sessions, is on sale now.

Cast have been confirmed as one of the support acts on the Oasis tour next year and frontman John Power is – as you’d expect – immensely chuffed about it.

In an interview with NME Power said that he was “blown away,” when he heard the news. “We had the nod and were just waiting for the official announcement. Now we can bask in it. It’s a stamp of approval from our peers, and I appreciate that massively.”

Cast join Richard Ashcroft on the bill for the sold-out gigs next summer. It’s not known yet if any other support acts will be added. Thus far, it’s very much a Britpop pals reunion lineup, though Power chose to couch it in another way: “Us, Richard Ashcroft and Oasis – talk about Northern Soul! That’s some line-up.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Power reminisces about the first time he encountered one of the Gallaghers: “I’d just left The La’s and decided to go see them at this little club in Manchester, to show there were no bad feelings. That’s when I first met Liam. This young lad came up to me and asked me for a ciggy; it was a 16-year-old Liam.”

“Then later, me and Cast were recording some demos. Supersonic was really happening and Oasis were on this little club tour. I blagged my way into this little venue in Liverpool and I was talking to this NME journalist at the bar who recognised me from The La’s. Then Liam comes in, and this was a few days after the band had been on The Word, and tells me about me not giving him a ciggy!”

Not surprisingly, Power has fond memories of the Britpop years. “After Supersonic, it just exploded,” he remembers. “A lot of bands really believed in themselves and it wasn’t just front – they had the songs. I knew we were one of those bands too. It was a fantastic time.”

Cast split up after their fourth album, Beetroot, in 2001, but reformed in 2010 and have since released a further three albums. Last year’s Love Is The Call was the first since the band’s heyday to reach the Top 30.

The guitarist seems firmly focused on the present though rather than past glories: “When you walk on stage, it’s about the here and now – no one’s getting nostalgic,” he said. “It’s not about yesterday, these (Oasis) shows are going to be about 2025 and creating the myth of tomorrow. Hopefully 20 years from now, people will be talking about this tour like they talk about the legend of Knebworth or whatever.”

Ticketmaster has said that it is going to cancel 50,000 tickets for the upcoming Oasis gigs in the UK because they were purchased on resale sites.

And the promoters, Live Nation and SJM, have confirmed that these tickets will go back on sale through Ticketmaster at face value.

The move, Ticketmaster claims, is to combat touting. Tickets were appearing on resale sites such as Viagogo at vastly inflated prices. Rules for the ticket sales stated that fans were only allowed to buy tickets via Ticketmaster or resale partner, Twickets, at face value.

In a statement to the BBC, a Live Nation spokesperson said: “These terms and conditions were successfully put in place to take action against secondary ticketing companies reselling tickets for huge profit. Only four percent of tickets have ended up on resale sites. Some major tours can see up to 20 percent of tickets appearing via the major unauthorised secondary platforms.”

“All parties involved with the tour continue to urge fans not to purchase tickets from unauthorised websites as some of these may be fraudulent and others subject to cancellation.”

Any fans who feel that they have been dealt with unjustly have the option of speaking to the relevant ticket agents for a resolution.

There are two sides to every story, though, and whilst touting undoubtedly does go on on secondary platforms, the likes of Viagogo claim that they are providing a way for fans that missed out on the initial sale or who may have had issues with their internet connection to purchase tickets.

Cris Miller, Viagogo global managing director, has previously argued this very point: “We know fans are frustrated with the process and we know there is a better way. We continue to support industry collaboration to ensure the entire ticketing market works for fans and the live entertainment industry.

“Resale is legal in the UK and fans are always protected by our guarantee that they will receive their tickets in time for the event or their money back.”

The secondary market in tickets is a hugely controversial issue, and one which the government is currently reviewing. The question of ‘surge’ or dynamic pricing is also being looked at by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to see if it has broken consumer protection law. The recent debacle over Oasis tickets, which saw fans paying many times over the odds for tickets through Ticketmaster, brought this practice - used for a while in the industry - fully out into the open.

Oasis is a band that most of us don’t tend to lean into when we think of the great riff writing bands, but perhaps we should start doing that.

Oasis are known for their huge anthemic songs that defined the sound of the 1990s, but inside some of their songs that are actually some riffs that can rival the great riff writers of all time.

In this lesson we’re going to check out 5 classic Oasis riffs and one very underrated riff you also need to check out.

1. Cigarettes & Alcohol

Cigarettes & Alcohol starts with a riff that you’d be forgiven for mistaking for a T-Rex riff. This 12 bar blues style riff conjures up imagery of 1970s Glam Rock bands.

The riff combines some simple blues style patterns with single note walk downs and arpeggiated chords.

Overall, the riff is pretty easy to play through, but the final section can be tricky as you move into the F#11 chord. The finger movement into the first part of the chord needs to be accurate because once you start arpeggiating the chord, there is no room for error.

2. Some Might Say

The riff to Some Might Say starts in a very similar manner to Cigarettes & Alcohol, it starts with a very familiar 12 bar blues style riff.

This riff has some additional challenges when the chords kick in because you’ll be playing power chords, but also barring across the strings on both the B and G power chords to allow you to pick some higher notes.

The riff ends with a Keith Richards style riff which involves playing the A chord with a single finger barring the notes on the D, G and B strings which allows you to add additional notes.

This short riff covers a lot of changes in just 8 bars so when learning this be sure to break it down section by section and focus on getting every transition clean.

3. F*****' in the Bushes

This is one of Oasis’ more out and out rock riffs. This song kicks off with a single note picked riff that wouldn’t be out of place on some of our favourite classic rock records.

The riff is be played with alternate picking as it is mostly made up of 16^th notes. There are a few instances where you will skip a 16^th note, meaning you will pick the same direction twice, but overall, alternate picking will make this riff feel much smoother under the fingers.

There is a large position shift from the 3^rd fret to the 7^th so focus on getting from place to place a little slower at first. The picking hand should not have any break in rhythm at this point of the riff so timing is very important here.

4. Supersonic

Supersonic features one of the most iconic sounding Oasis chords, the F#m11. This chord will instantly make you think of this song.

The song is made up of a repeated, arpeggiated chord pattern which goes up the F#m11 before coming back down, but instead of finishing up on the 4^th fret of the A string, you will replace this with an open A string.

The riff then moves to a change between an A power chord and the lowest 3 notes of a B7 chord.

This riff is repeated 4 times, but on the final time a short bending phrase is added after the B7 chord.

5. Slide Away

Slide Away is a track that has puzzled many guitar players over the years. The hardest part about playing this track is hearing the different between the two guitar parts on the record. One one side you have an arpeggiated chord sequence, and the other side a strummed chord pattern.

These two parts blend together so well on record that it’s sometimes hard to work out which guitar is doing which part.

The overall progression being outlined is Am7, G, Fmaj7sus2.

On the guitar part playing the arpeggios, you will need to add the G note on the high E string also.

After the Am7 chord, there is a short run before going to the G (which is outlined with just a single note), before running up the Fmaj7sus2 chord. If you want to create a fuller sound for a single guitar arrangement, you can insert a full G chord instead of the single note that is a placeholder.

The Am7 chord changes rhythm slightly on the second repeat, starting with 2 small strums before playing the same run down but slightly delayed.

6. Cloudburst

This riff is easily one of the most underrated and under-appreciated riffs in the Oasis discography. The riff has a strong classic rock vibe, but also has a John Squire/Stone Roses style feel about it.

The riff in question starts about the 3:30 mark on the track. The first bar you hear is a pair of open low E notes, followed by a semi tone bend on the 6^th fret of the D, ending on the 7^th of the A.

This open low E phrase is only played on this first instance, this is replaced by a hammer on phrase from here on.

The riff then moves to a hammer on from the 5^th to the 7^th frets of the A then D strings, before hitting an open E string. Then the bending phrase is repeated, except this time the bend is on the 6^th of the G and you land on the 7^th of the D.

The riff jumps between two different starting points, one on the A string, one on the E. You then start the riff from the 5^th fret of the E and repeat the hammer on phrase from this string.

One thing that’s been missing from the Oasis reunion thus far has been any joint interviews with both Noel and Liam Gallagher. There was no big press conference initially, and there have been no sit downs with TV, press or indeed any media outlet.

Well, get used to it. According to Liam, that’s how he and Noel are going to handle the reunion. Why? Because they don’t want to answer “intrusive” questions.

“We don’t want to do interviews coz we’re scared of the media asking us intrusive questions and trying to pick holes in our relationship,” posted Liam on Twitter/X yesterday (Oct. 10). When a fan cheekily responded with a little flattery, saying “I think Noel doesn’t want to do interviews with you because you’re funnier,” Liam merely responded, “RESPEK.”

Later when another fan asked about a potential joint interview, the 52 year old singer replied: “Can’t be arsed,” adding “we’re not doing any” and “they ain’t getting 1.”

The idea that these two seasoned media operators wouldn’t able to handle ‘intrusive’ questions is quite frankly, ridiculous. Is their rapprochement really that fragile? Or is Liam’s ‘can’t be arsed’ stance closer to the truth? I mean, it’s not as if they need publicity to shift tickets.

Nevertheless, you have to say it’s disappointing. As anyone who has ever interviewed either of them - together or separately - knows, Noel and Liam are a journalist’s dream. Funny and candid in an era when pop stars are trained to reveal little but bland platitudes, the Gallaghers are the last of their breed: born stars who probably came out of the womb with pull quotes.

This is a pair whose first interview with NME in 1994 - which deteriorated into an argument over who was most ‘rock n’ roll’ - was released as a single and reached Number 52 during peak Oasismania in late 1995. You can’t quite imagine that happening with, say, The Killers.

There’s no doubt about it, the Oasis reunion is going to be that little bit less exciting without interviews.

Meanwhile the tour keeps expanding. Australian dates have added to the brothers’ itinerary with shows pencilled in for Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium on October 31 and Sydney’s Accor Stadium on November 7. “People of the land down under. You better run – you better take cover… We are coming. You are most welcome. Oasis will tour Australia in 2025!” the band’s Twitter/X account announced earlier this week.

In the early days of 2000, Noel Gallagher spoke to Total Guitar about the Oasis album he had just finished working on - Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants.

With characteristic bluntness, Noel said straight off the bat: “The new album is very good but not great. I think we can do better and probably will.”

But the big reveal came when he talked about the challenge of recording pretty much all of the guitar tracks for this album, following the departure of founder member Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs. “I never really wanted to play lead,” Noel said. “I’m more of a rhythm guitar player. That’s how I write.”

At the time of this interview, Bonehead’s replacement was already confirmed - Gem Archer, formerly of fellow Creation Records band Heavy Stereo. But Archer hadn’t joined Oasis in time to play on the new album, and as Noel revealed, a famous friend had been willing to help out if needed.

“Johnny Marr offered his services to the band,” Noel confessed. “He said, ‘If you can’t find anyone I’ll step in for a while.’ And we said, ‘Fine.’ But then we recruited Gem. Johnny was just gonna save us if we didn’t have anyone.”

Noel also said that the main guitar he used for Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants was in fact a gift from Marr.“I got this Les Paul from Johnny,” he said. “There were really modern pickups in it and I didn’t like it. So I tossed the pickups out, took some from another guitar and put them in this.”

He concluded with a wry smile: “It’s a better guitar now, so he’s not getting it back!”

A new survey from Yougov has worked out that ticket touts cost UK music fans around £145 million each year.

The survey was commissioned by Virgin O2, who, of course, sponsor a number of venues around the country and sell tickets themselves via their own Priority platform. 

It surveyed over 2000 music fans over the age of 18 and aside from that eye-watering annual figure that touts make, it also revealed that ‘almost half’ of fans who had recently attended a live gig could not correctly identify a ticket resale platform. The study also found that one in five tickets end up on a resale platform of one sort or another.

Speaking about the survey, O2’s Director Gareth Griffiths said: “We are tired of professional ticket touts abusing the ticket marketplace and stealing tickets out of fans’ hands, only to immediately relist them at inflated prices.”

He continued: “Music fans deserve the chance to buy tickets at a price set by their favourite artist, but all too often they are forced to pay a price decided by a stranger on the internet. Consumers deserve more protection and better information about the tickets they’re paying for.”

Live event ticketing is a hot topic right now largely down to the recent furore over the ‘dynamic’ pricing of Oasis tickets. The incoming government are committed to a review of the entire secondary sales market for tickets, which will include dynamic pricing. But in the wake of the survey O2 called for three steps to improve the current system.

These include clearer information during the sale process on ticket resale platforms, such as a pop-up notification that fully explains who the ticket is being bought from and the potential risks involved. They also suggested clearer identification of ticket resale platforms on search engines – currently resale websites can buy their way to the top of search results without having to mention their tickets are second-hand.

Griffiths also shared some tips for punters. These include checking the artist’s website and social media for the official ticket partners and being aware of the risks of buying a second hand ticket – whilst sites like Viagogo may offer a refund if you’ve bought a fake ticket, it still means you don’t get to see the show and have probably wasted a whole lot of money on travel expenses. Fan-to-fan platforms such as Twickets may be a better bet as tickets there cannot be sold for more than the original price (plus fees, of course).

Finally, O2 stated that they supported legislation to combat excessive profiteering in the secondary market. We wait then to see what the upcoming government review comes up with...

The agony and the ecstasy of trying to secure tickets to see your favourite band is, by now, a badge of honour for emotionally and financially bruised and battered music fans. And the release of tickets for each click-again, try-and-fail supergig seems to only be getting more and more painful.

So the story goes for Ticketmaster’s release of Coldplay tickets which went live this morning at 9am UK and have caused fury among fans clamouring to snap up tickets globally, including the Hull and record-breaking Wembley Stadium gigs from August 18th through to September 8th next year.

The band – as suspected – added two more dates to the Wembley run during yesterday’s pre-sale, bringing the total number of Wembley gigs to ten, setting a new record for the 90,000 seater soundstage.

However, following systems failing to deliver the goods for Taylor Swift’s Eras gigs earlier this year and then the highly-unpopular dynamic pricing implemented by the Oasis team for their 2025 gigs, Coldplay have become the next big names to place Ticketmaster’s failures in the frame.

The latest Ticketmaster turkey happened this morning as pre-registered fans piled on to seal the deal. However, rather than successfully part with cash, many fans were hit with a requirement to change their password or authenticate their account one more time – something requiring Ticketmaster to email out unique codes to check addresses. Emails and codes which were not forthcoming… Meanwhile tickets dripped away in their thousands.

“Ticketmaster saying I need a code to verify my account and then just not sending the code??? make it make SENSE #coldplay,” being just one of hundreds of similar outpourings on X.

Most annoying for fans who didn’t qualify for yesterday’s presale event was the fact that even once through the re-checks, the presale had apparently left only a limited number of tickets available for general sale on the official launch date.

“They’ve sold most during pre-sale limited tickets already #Coldplay'; 'would be good to know why all ticket types are already extremely limited 2 mins before general sale has even started #coldplay #ticketmaster' complained a typical fan on X.

“Tell me how this works then? Waited nearly 3 hours from sale being live to “queue” to be told there’s none left. Your system is an absolute con!” wrote another.

Meanwhile it appears that more organised ‘scalpers’ haven’t missed a moment to cash in on their good fortune, with hundreds of tickets – ranging from £400 to £700 – hitting ticket resale sites StubHub and Viagogo within minutes.

The move has prompted some to take to social media, sharing movies of the tickets now on sale elsewhere, and demanding that these tickets be cancelled so that ‘real fans’ can have a chance of buying them.

“Screw you scalpers. There's a special seat in hell for you,” being just one of a storm of similar protests.

All in all yet another launch disaster for Ticketmaster, and not a good look for squeaky clean Coldplay.

That said, things could be worse. Following their bungled sale of Oasis tickets – where Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing system automatically raised the price of tickets in line with how popular they were proving – the company is now facing an investigation from the Competition and Markets Authority.

The watchdog said that fans: “May not have been given clear information about ticket prices as they struggled to snap up tickets for the Oasis Live '25 tour earlier this month.” The CMA will be ascertaining as to whether fans were unfairly pressured to snap up tickets in a short time, prompting them to pay higher prices than they may have originally planned. 

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on this month’s hot topic: Oasis tickets.

Now Gene Simmons has weighed in on the subject, suggesting that Oasis fans who don’t like the dynamic pricing system can, ahem, “fuck off”.

In a new interview with Forbes magazine, the Kiss frontman was asked about the ‘ethics’ of the Oasis ticket sale. Simmons, not exactly known for being a bleeding heart, didn’t hold back.

“They’re entitled to f**k off. You have the ultimate power, supply and demand,” he began, referring to the disappointed fans. “Whatever the pricing is, is all academic. Somebody sits in a room and tries to figure out how far the rubber band can stretch. And if you’re not selling tickets, guess what happens? The price goes down. Capitalism!”

He continued: “If you don’t want to pay that amount, don’t go. I’m sure it’ll be streamed someplace and you figure out a way and you’ll complain. But social media has opened up the pathways of expressing yourself and there are no traffic cops. It’s like traffic in Italy and France, just people just go right by each other. It’s just insane.”

“Also it’s a way to get attention, but ultimately the quiet people, the ones that don’t really use social media, vote with their money. You don’t like the ticket pricing? Don’t buy a ticket.”

Whilst we’re on the subject of Kiss, Paul Stanley has promised that the KISS avatar show will be “beyond anything that anyone else has contemplated.”

The KISS catalogue and brand name have been acquired by Pophouse Entertainment, the company which brought up the Abba Voyage show, which launched in 2022. Stanley has said that he is confident that with technology developing further, the Kiss show will be a step on from Abba Voyage.

Speaking on Billboard's podcast Behind The Setlist, he said: "People just are thrilled with Voyage. I took my wife last month, and I had seen it last year. So Pophouse understood what we wanted to do and that what we wanna create is something that’s state of the art today."

“What I can tell you is that the technology that’s being used, which is a furthering of the technology used on the ABBA show, has to be installed and basically a building has to be built around it. So this isn’t something where you’re in Kansas City today, and tomorrow you fly with your projector to do it. It demands an arena, so to speak that’s really solely used for a show like this.”

He won’t use the term ‘avatar’ show though: "That term seems to get thrown around a lot, but the idea of a simulated concert is not what we wanna do. What we’re creating is an immersive experience that KISS fans will love. It’s a must-see go-to experience…beyond anything that anyone else has contemplated.”