How a Dundee gig (and a cheap tambourine) helped to send Oasis supersonic

NOEL Gallagher will return to Dundee this weekend for the first time since playing a pub gig with Oasis to just 74 people.

Noel will headline tonight’s Dundee Summer Sessions at Slessor Gardens – with £55 and £77.50 tickets a bit pricier than the £3 it cost to see him in the 1990s.

Back then he was still performing alongside brother Liam in Oasis and the April 5 1994 gig was the band’s first headline show in Scotland.

Only 17 advance tickets were sold for Lucifer’s Mill in Session Street, despite Oasis being dubbed ‘the best new band in Britain’ on the gig poster.

The week before, that number was only two – before things picked up.

The group had gained a reputation for rowdy gigs and were supported by Glasgow band 18 Wheeler after being booked by promoter John Cruickshanks.

A new stage was being installed in Lucifer’s Mill when the band arrived for the soundcheck, as the existing ‘stage’ wasn’t deemed to be of sufficient standard for live gigs.

Once the stage was completed Liam checked out the quality of the work by bouncing up and down on it while chanting: “Noel’s going under tonight.”

The show came just four months before the band released Definitely Maybe, which became the UK’s fastest-selling debut album of all time.

The band blasted out hits from the now legendary album including Rock ‘N’ Roll Star, Live Forever, Supersonic, Cigarettes & Alcohol and Slide Away.

Noel was interviewed backstage after the gig for a music fanzine and was asked if he thought things were happening too fast?

“No, I don’t think things are happening too fast,” he said.

“People might see it as a hype, well, some of it is a hype, but that’s not us.

“I mean, we didn’t just form yesterday and get a record deal.

“We’ve had two and a half years of this.

“It was weird, how we got signed.

“We were playing at this club in Glasgow, opening for 18 Wheeler and Alan McGee just showed up.”

Noel was asked about brother Liam’s blue star-shaped tambourine, which he played during the gig at Lucifer’s Mill. “I bought Liam it,” he said.

“It was £9.99 and he didn’t even say thank you…”

Noel also signed a set of drumsticks for the pub and they were kept downstairs but were put in the bin when the place was being cleared out.

Lucifer’s Mill – which could hold around 250 people – was the perfect size at the time for touring bands who weren’t quite ready to hit the big halls and arenas.

But just two years later hundreds of people queued overnight to buy tickets for the band’s two shows at Loch Lomond, which attracted 80,000.

Oasis would play to 250,000 fans in Knebworth one week later, the largest outdoor gig in UK history at the time.

The band’s original drummer,

Tony McCarroll, said: “The first tours were to smaller crowds, giving us a bit of experience on the road.

“I have memories of doing the smaller circuit sometimes to only two people then repeating a year later to a few hundred locked out.

“It escalated very fast as people learned how good this band was.

“We worked each territory from the ground up and the word spread fast.

“When it came to a performance we were well-rehearsed and a very tight unit.

“No matter if only two were in the crowd, we would never give a half-hearted set to a paying punter.

The Lucifer’s Mill appearance was made in happier times for the future superstars.