Yahoo News How Noel Gallagher ended up needing stitches as trouble flared during Oasis gig at Newcastle’s Riverside
It’s 30 years since an up-and-coming young band from Manchester found themselves in the headlines after trouble flared at a gig in Newcastle.
The band was Oasis and the venue was the Riverside on Melbourne Street. In August, 1994, the Evening Chronicle reported: “A band tipped for stardom were caught up in a brawl with their audience as they kicked off their national tour in Newcastle. Noel Gallagher, from the pop group Oasis, needed stitches after being attacked on stage at the Riverside. Others from the five-strong band, which includes his brother Liam, piled on top of the man and allegedly hit him, before the audience joined in.”
It was the band’s third appearance at the Riverside, and as the night wore on, the football-related banter between Manchester City supporters Liam and Noel and Newcastle United fans in the audience had begun to ramp up the tension. Trouble erupted when an audience member suddenly tried to climb on stage, but stumbled on to Noel, causing the guitarist to accidentally hit himself with his instrument, cutting his face. It was further reported that the band stormed off stage with singer Liam returning, brandishing a microphone stand, and snarling “no-one hits our kid” while the crowd chanted “soft as ****”.
The group managed to escape to their waiting van, but were besieged by chanting fans. Oasis later issued a statement, apologising for ending the show after only five numbers, but said that Gallagher had been bleeding heavily. “The actions of one lunatic have ruined it for the rest,” the statement read. Thankfully there was no lasting damage done to the relationship between the band and the city, and Oasis returned to play several high-profile, sell-out shows in later years, with Liam even famously wearing a Newcastle United shirt during one performance at Newcastle Arena in 1997.
Oasis with their churning guitar rock and sing-along anthems helped define pop music in the 1990s. They were the main protagonists of the Britpop movement, which heavily evoked music from three decades earlier by classic groups such as The Beatles, The Who and The Small Faces. During 1995 and 1996, the band were at the peak of their powers, scoring huge hit singles with Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back In Anger, while their album Definitely Maybe was one of the biggest selling of the decade.
Meanwhile, the Gallagher brothers proved popular subject matter for daily tabloid newspapers, and there were plenty of stories about them falling out with each other, and feuds with Brtipop rivals Blur and Take That’s Robbie Williams, among others. Following years of much-publicised acrimony between Noel and Liam, Oasis finally broke up in 2009 with the brothers forming separate bands.
But today the band has announced a reunion tour with 14 shows across the UK.
As for Newcastle’s original Riverside venue on Melbourne Street, between 1985 and 1999, it played host to hundreds of gigs by acts both well-known and unknown. Featured in music mag NME’s top 10 UK venues list. It was the scene of Nirvana’s first UK show in 1989, and where David Bowie chose to stage the smallest gig on his 1997 Earthling tour after Elvis Costello told him about it.
Other notable bands of the time who performed there included Red Hot Chili Peppers, Buzzcocks, Pearl Jam, Blur, The Fall, the Pixies, Sonic Youth, The Primitives, The StoneRoses, Manic Street Preachers, Radiohead, Throwing Muses and Moby.
