Over two days in August 1996, Oasis played to 250,000 people at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire. Riding high on two bestselling albums, the concerts were seen as the crowning moment in their career.
The Guardian covered the weekend but Caroline Sullivan’s review concentrated on the Charlatans, one of the support acts. There was a picture of the Knebworth crowds on page 7, but the main review that day was of folk-rock band Fairport Convention’s Cropredy festival. There was also a review of the “anti-Oasis” Divine Comedy.
In fairness, the paper had recently carried a piece about Oasis’s Loch Lomond gigs, and it continued to report all the latest news about the band including the constant falling out/making up of the Gallagher brothers, and a Smurfs’ cover of Wonderwall. Read both pieces here:
Blue tones: The Charlatans must have dreamt of upstaging Oasis. At Knebworth, they almost did. But it came at a horrible price
By Caroline Sullivan
13 August 1996
“This is history,” Noel Gallagher shouted on Sunday, all vestiges of Mancunian cool gone as he surveyed the 125,000 disciples jamming Knebworth’s green acres to the horizon. Despite his fondness for overstatement, he was right. Oasis’s weekend shows were the largest outdoor gigs ever staged in Britain by one band. And if that wasn’t enough, the Morning Glory album was last week certified 10 times platinum (3m copies under UK classification), making it the UK’s seventh-bestselling album ever.
Today, as Noel and Our Kid ponder how to top it (Their own sitcom? A pub tour?), a handful of other bands will be nursing their own Knebworth memories. The Prodigy, Manic Street Preachers and Cast, though capable of headlining decent-sized venues themselves, became support acts for a day and were greeted with the mild enthusiasm reserved for introductory bands.
Only one outfit distracted the crowd’s attention from its noodles and beer, but for all the wrong reasons. “This is going to be a fairly difficult gig,” said Radio 1’s Jo Whiley, introducing the Charlatans. That they were playing at all, after the death of keyboardist Rob Collins in a car crash three weeks ago, elicited the biggest cheer of the day. Collins was responsible for the band’s trademark hypno-swirl sound, and his loss must put their future in doubt. However, they made a statement of sorts by honouring their Knebworth commitment, with Primal Scream’s keyboardist, Martin Duffy, standing in.
Aptly, it began to rain as they entered, a seagull soundtrack matching the mood. The drizzle stopped, but the sombreness remained, becoming a listlessness that dragged at the usually uplifting music (in which Collins’s Hammond flourishes were reproduced to the letter). Singer Tim Burgess, normally lost in a psychedelic trance, was blank-faced somewhere inside a hooded anorak. “New tune,” he murmured occasionally, as if feeling obliged to say something. After a while, they just seemed to stop. A sad, dispirited set, but one that deserves praise for having been done at all.
Loch’n’roll: The setting, the passion, the chemical toilets … Oasis’s concert in Balloch was a classic of its kind
By Brian Logan
5 August 1996
Amble down Balloch’s main road any other day of the year and you’d be seduced – or bored – by its simplicity. You might stop at Corries tea shop for a cuppa and a scone; you might tinker with tartans in Loch Lomond Kilts. It’s a far cry from … well, from Manchester.
When locals heard that Oasis were to visit loch’n’roll upon them, they kicked up something of a fuss. How could sleepy Balloch take the strain of these rock gods and 80,000 boisterous disciples? We have, they protested, only one public lavatory.
Yet the horde that flocked to Loch Lomond this weekend was extended a warm(ish) reception. “West Dunbartonshire Council Welcomes You” read the signs; West Dunbartonshire residents, meanwhile, glared proprietorially from their windows.
Their concern was misplaced. If the Gallagher brothers are sharing next week’s bill at Knebworth with the Chemical Brothers, this week they had chemical toilets for company. Hundreds, erected defiantly at the very entrance so passing Highlanders would see that the mighty Oasis could do without their measly lavatory, thank you very much.
Rumour has it that forward-thinking revellers had come to Balloch Castle Country Park before the construction of the arena to bury their drugs beyond the investigation of the wiliest police officer. If there is an epidemic of blissed-out rabbits in the west of Scotland, we’ll know why.
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