HELLO GOODBYE
He deputised when Noel Gallagher walked off a European tour, and it didn’t have time to go downhill.
He was feelin’ fine ’n’ folky when the call came from a stadium band in a pickle. Matt Deighton remembers three breakneck months in Oasis.
HELLO MAY 25, 2000
I’d been in Paul Weller’s band, and my record, You Are The Healer, had just come out, which was like a folky album. I’d popped round to a friend’s house, Jason Alper’s, in North London – he’s Ali G’s stylist now – and he said I had to call Ignition Management, who I knew were Oasis’s company, but I didn’t know what it was about. So I went home to Essex and called. I can’t remember the bloke’s name, but he said, “Are you sitting down? It’s about quite a big group, very top secret.” I said the only group I knew on Ignition were Oasis, was it them? He said it was, and that one of the members had walked out and did I want to play live with them? I thought, I hope it’s not Noel [Gallagher, guitarist/ songwriter], he’s the only one I know, from him coming on tour with Weller, but it was. I had a gig in Dublin booked the day before they wanted me to fly out to Switzerland, but we worked that out. There wasn’t much of a conversation really. I said, “Yeah, great,” as anyone in their right mind would. From that call to rehearsing was only about a week. I think I might have been recommended by Steve to Alan [the White brothers, respectively drummers to Weller and Oasis]. We met at the hotel and they said, “What stuff are you into?” I said early Fleetwood Mac, which they were all listening to, so we bonded over Danny Kirwan. We had two, three days of rehearsals. We played instrumentally first, so I could get a blend going with Gem [Archer, guitar] and Andy [Bell, bass]. Liam [Gallagher, voice] was sitting listening, having a cigarette. I was playing Noel’s guitars, which was a funny old one. I remember it was all being video’d. They’d sent me a CD of the setlist and Gem was brilliant, showing me the chords when we were rehearsing on the tour bus. The first gig in Milan went really well. No one was freaking out, everyone was cool, it was,“Let’s give this a right old go.” It was exciting. I’d had long hair in [Acid Jazz group] Mother Earth, and a moustache before. My mate said, “You got your hair cut to be in Oasis.” But I’d got a skinhead two days before I’d got the call.
GOODBYE AUGUST 23, 2000
I had no illusions that I was actually in the group. I was in because Noel wasn’t about, otherwise it would’ve been one guitar too many. Obviously, it’d really gone off in a bad way, but essentially, 90 per cent of the setlist was written by the bloke that wasn’t there, so they were gonna be looking to get him back in sooner rather than later. I wasn’t thinking, “Oh blimey, now Noel’s gone I’ll present them with some pastoral folk songs!” It was the last leg of the world tour for [Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants], so after that they were able to have a meeting with Noel, I guess. There must have been talk by then. Noel came and did the Wembley and Dublin shows, and we went back to Europe without him. Make of that what you will. They probably thought, “Let’s leave it running as it is”. During the tour we actually came back home for about four days, and we went to this party for Andy Bell’s birthday in London, and Noel was there, which was quite hilarious. I said, “You’ve got some nice guitars, it’s nice to be playing them.” It was a fancy-dress thing, I was dressed as Action Man, I think Liam was dressed as something medieval and Alan White was on roller skates. Noel had just come as himself. We had a good chat and hung out and then we went back on tour without him. The last show was in Madrid [actually the Gijón festival], a real good one, a blazing old gig. But there wasn’t really a bad one. It didn’t go downhill. It was a lovely experience, playing those songs, Acquiesce, and Who Feels Love?, and Gas Panic!, hearing them up close, in stadiums. It wasn’t really marked – I think we had a few drinks after, but there was no damage to any rooms. There were hugs when we parted at Victoria station and a week or two later everyone, Noel included, went to see Peter Green play at the Borderline. It was very tidily left, very gentlemanly. As told to Ian Harrison
Doubtless Dauntless is out on Monks Road Records on October 28. He plays the 229 The Venue, London, on December 8. A documentary, Deighton Dauntless, will screen in 2019.
“Liam was dressed as something medieval…” MATT DEIGHTON