Getting High (8 page)

‘Really liked a few of the songs,' the fan said, ‘you're a good songwriter.'

Immediately, Digsy pointed to Noel on-stage and said in his loud scouse accent, ‘Nah mate, that's a songwriter down there. I'm a songteller. He's a songwriter.'

An hour after the last note had died away, Oasis, minus Noel, were in their dressing-room. Robbie Williams was also present.

Bonehead had a copy of the
New Musical Express
with him. That week, Britain's largest-selling music weekly had published a letter from an Oasis fan complaining about having to queue up hours for Earls Court tickets ‘only to find out that one-note-never-moves-on-stage-Guigsy is not playing because he is exhausted. Well, what about me who got to Earls Court at six in the morning.'

‘The geezer's not far wrong,' Liam said with a cheeky grin.

‘When that went down,' Robbie said of Guigsy having to temporarily leave the band due to severe exhaustion, ‘I knew exactly how he felt. Been there myself.'

Outside, as the roadies trundled down gangways pushing huge boxes, Marcus Russell and Noel stood surveying the hall.

‘Bloody hell,' Marcus said, looking at the fifty-strong road crew and local workers hired on the day to help out rushing around, ‘I remember when we played gigs where there weren't this many people in the audience.'

It had, of course, all changed now. Marcus had come up bearing astounding news, and it was this:
(What's The Story) Morning Glory?
was outselling even their high expectations.

Three hundred thousand copies had gone to the shops on Monday and by the afternoon there were re-orders for 17,000 more. Today, that number was up to 48,000. It looked like being the fastest-selling album in the UK, ever. Another poke in the eye for the disbelievers.

‘So I've spoken to Johnny Hopkins,' Marcus said,' And I really think you should only be talking to the big dailies now and maybe a big Sunday paper,
The Times
or something.'

‘Yeah, whatever,' Noel said. Then he spotted Digsy walking across the hall. Noel called him over, told him the news about the LP's sales.

‘Can I swop bands?' Digsy asked.

‘You can't swop tunes,' Noel replied.

‘Ah, that's when you find out who your mates are.'

‘How about swapping brothers?' Noel offered.

‘Nah, swop instruments, mate.'

The pair laughed easily, much time already between them. On the bus, Noel picked up the Sun and shouted, ‘Liam, come here.'

‘What?'

‘Look at this.'

Noel turned to the gossip page where they had run a picture of Liam from the Megastore gig. His eyeballs were right at the top of his eyelids. He looked half-blind.

‘Yeah, so? I was fucking E'd up. What do you expect?'

‘I expect pop singers to look better than that,' Noel said with obvious glee.

At the hotel, everyone went down to the bar, except Noel. He stood by the lift, his white Adidas bag in hand. A friend of his then approached him.

‘What are you doing, Noel?'

‘Going to my room.'

‘Do you want a line?'

‘Nah, not for me.'

‘You sure?' The friend had obviously never heard Noel turn down the offer of cocaine before.

‘I've got to get up early and drive back to London,' Noel explained. ‘I'm doing some XFM [an independent radio] show on acoustic guitar and I don't want to fuck it up. You going to the Bournemouth gig? I'll see ya there.'

Meanwhile, in the bar, Liam had Digsy on his shoulders and Scott was chatting to a woman. It was about five a.m. before the last person straggled out.

The next day was travel day. Noel had left the hotel with Marcus, around ten. Two hours later the band got on the coach with Maggie. Liam had a copy of the film
Head
starring The Monkees. It is a wilfully psychedelic film from 1968 that had been written by Hollywood actor Jack Nicholson in an attempt to smash The Monkees' clean-cut image.

As giant hoovers dispersed The Monkees into caves or they inexplicably spoke with Italian soldiers in the desert, Liam said, ‘This is the kind of shit we should get into. Do a mad fucking film that will mess with everyone's heads. Be fucking top.'

He said it like a threat.

At a service station, Liam, Alan and Bonehead discovered a machine that gave the illusion you were being photographed with a celebrity. Liam, surprisingly, posed with Eric Cantona. So did Alan White. Bonehead had his head imposed on a Take That picture.

‘I'll get the office to do a press release, then I'll send it to the
NME
,' he joked. ‘Tell them I've taken Robbie Williams's place in Take That. Imagine, Bonehead Joins Take That.'

‘Don't do that,' Liam said. ‘The cunts will only believe you.'

Bonehead turned to Scott. ‘How did you get on with that girl last night?'

Scott shook his head. ‘Not at all. She said a few daft things. I thought, she's a spunker, so I went to bed.'

‘Did you have a wank?'

Scott's face turned a slight red, his voice a little defensive.

‘No.'

‘Listen mate,' Bonehead said, adopting the tone of a sergeant major advising a private, ‘in this band you're either shagging or having a wank. Got to be done, innit?' He looked round for confirmation, and everyone solemnly nodded their heads. ‘Got to be done,' he repeated.

The coach finally pulled into Bournemouth at about seven. It had been a long drive. Jason, Noel's guitar roadie, wandered into the lobby as everyone booked themselves in.

‘A very good evening to everyone,' he announced in his mock toff's accent. ‘Not a lot doing here, boys.' The crew had travelled over night and already been round town.

‘There's some bar which is meant to be good. If you would care to assemble in the hotel bar in about an hour, we can take things from there.'

‘Rightio,' Bonehead said.

An hour later, Oasis's road crew and band members sat in the bar. There were three Birmingham girls sitting close by. They had planned a week's holiday around the Bournemouth gig.

Two of them were good-looking. They were the ones getting a lot of attention. Their other friend, having sussed out the situation, had opted to play mother, and look after them. She thought this advisable because Liam was the obvious attraction, and he had just discovered a potent cocktail. In twenty minutes, he had downed three of them and the spirit was with him.

‘Have you ever noticed,' he said to Bonehead, ‘how letters can become words?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Well, check this. U.R.A.Q.T.'

‘Fuck me, so they can.' Bonehead thought for a moment, and Liam looked pleased with himself. Words weren't his thing. He hated signing his name, for example. School had done that to him. Made him afraid of pen and paper.

He could stand in front of 20,000 people and front them out, big time. No problem there. But his achilles heel was words. Words frightened him. Words told him that there were two kinds of people in this world. There were those who could spell music and then there were those who could play it. Liam was the latter. Instinctive, no thought.

‘Liam?'

‘What?'

‘U.R.O.K.' Bonehead said.

Soon after, everyone left the bar. Some went in search of food. Liam and co. stayed with the girls who knew of a bar where the drinks were cheap. When Liam entered, people stopped to stare. But few approached him. Half an hour later, he disappeared into the toilet with Paul, a roadie.

They had just snorted up some cocaine when they were surprised by a banging on the door. It was the bouncer. He had spotted them going into the gents together.

‘Fuck!'

Liam and Paul stared at each other. ‘What?' Liam shouted to the bouncer.

‘There better not be two of you in there.'

Paul reacted first. He undid the lock and the pair of them stepped out.

‘Look,' he remonstrated. ‘I know what you're thinking but it's not that. He's just split up with his girlfriend and I was talking to him about it, in private, you know what I mean. I mean, he can't get any peace out there and he is very upset.'

Paul and the bouncer looked at Liam. Particles of cocaine were falling out of his nostril. Paul knew then that it was useless to argue.

‘I don't believe you,' the bouncer said.

‘Okay, then mate, here's the crack,' Liam said. ‘Me and him are gay and we were in there doing it.'

‘Right, you two, out,' The bouncer went to take Liam's arm.

Liam stepped back an inch and fixed him with a cold stare. ‘Look mate, we'll fuck off from your poxy joint but don't you dare touch my fucking coat. That's all. Don't touch my coat.'

The bouncer considered the situation, stepped back and let Liam walk past him and out into the cold October air.

Back at the hotel there was football on the TV. Manchester City were playing in the Coca-Cola cup. Paul, Liam and the three girls retired to a room to watch it. The room had two single beds. Liam sat with the two pretty ones. Paul spoke to ‘mum'.

But despite all Liam's subtle suggestions, there was to be no action tonight. The ‘mum' of the party wasn't going to leave without her brood. They were keen to stay. No doubt there. They said so every time their friend went to the bathroom. But ‘mum' was adamant. She wasn't budging without them.

Finally, reluctantly, they left for the house they were staying in. Liam promised to put them all on the guest-list.

‘But I'm not putting the ugly one on,' he viciously stated after they had gone. ‘She can fuck right off.'

Liam was now at a loose end. And he was pissed and wired. No way was he going to bed. Not in this state, not at this time. He grabbed the phone and ordered up some drinks, produced the coke he had left over, started chopping it out, started talking. Of all things, he spoke about his name first.

He hated William. Too long. Far too long. But he did have John and Paul to go in between William and Gallagher, and as they were the best songwriters ever, it was a good sign.

His brother's name then came up. Inevitably.

‘Look at him kicking me out of his flat,' Liam said with mild disgust, like you would about someone who hadn't washed for days. ‘Half of that flat is mine. I'm his brother, half of it's mine.' This was Liam logic.

Yet the main grievance wasn't about house evictions. No. It was about money. The way it worked was simple; Oasis members all got the same cut from records and gigs, and were given weekly wages. Apart from Noel, whose songwriting royalties and publishing money saw to that. That slice of the cake wasn't shared. To Liam, this was wrong.

‘If I was the songwriter – I'm not, but if I was – I would divvy up that money as well. Spread it out among everyone. Not keep it to myself.'

After all, why were the band successful? Was it just the songs? Or was it other things? Like Liam's contribution. Or them working their arses off on the road. He didn't like it when Noel got involved on the money side of things. It changed him.

It was like in 1994 when they first went to New York. The record company took them out for a meal and this dickhead from Epic called them ‘lucky'. Lucky? Lucky to be signing to their label. Fucking lucky? Us?

Liam rounded on him, ‘You're fucking lucky to have us, not the other way round.' And Noel sat there and said nish, acted all business-like. Liam got annoyed and had a go at Noel as well.

Liam loved his brother, obvious innit? But sometimes he felt that Noel never gave anything back.

He bobbed his head and began talking about the Newcastle gig, the one where Noel got smacked on-stage. Here, Liam became indignant, the new Mancunian in him flaring up as his thoughts about the gig tumbled out.

The band's early attitude towards audiences was basically, ‘You are lucky to be getting all these songs. And then you get up on-stage and hit the geezer who wrote them? Nah mate, that is wrong. So wrong.

‘So I fucking grabbed the guy and pushed him in the pit. Kicked the cunt right in the head.' Liam stands up and mimes a vicious, silver-quick kick.

‘Bosh! Noel wanted to carry on. I said, “Nah, we're off.” Noel said, “I'm fine, we'll do him.” I said, “Nah, that's it, we're off.” So we left and then I thought, “Nah, I'm not having that.”

‘So I went back on-stage, stood by the mike and said, “Right, I'll take you all on. Not fucking thirty of you at once but one after the other. And I'll kick your fucking heads in. So who's having it?”'

Liam's voice dropped a register. ‘Not one of them came up. “Come on, who's having it?” Not one.'

Bitterness, tinged with disappointment, crept into his mouth. ‘And they call themselves our fans.'

Liam sat down and shook his head. It jogged another memory.

Like that time at the video for ‘Some Might Say', and all the shit he got for that. That was fucking murder.

They get back from New York and go to the hotel they've been booked in and it's there that he first sees the video storyline.

‘And it's poxy. It's me in the passenger seat of a car singing. Then it cuts to me in a cafe eating beans and eggs. Shit, right? So I read it and I said, “Fuck off, I'm not doing it.”

‘This record, “Some Might Say”, it's too important. To me, it's like “Imagine”, this song.' And Liam sings, ‘”Some might say they don't believe in Heaven / Go and tell it to the man who lives in Hell.” The song is too important.'

So on the day of the shoot, Liam says fuck off and refuses to go to the set. Stays in his hotel room. It costs the band twenty grand. But fuck it. Liam says he'll pay it. Guigsy and Bonehead talk to him. They don't like the treatment either.

‘But it's all right for you,' Liam points out. ‘You only have to stand there and play guitar. I have to fucking
sing
it. So I walk and I tell them, this song will get to number one anyway. We don't need a piss-poor video.'