LAST MAN STANDING
Kevin Cummins’ classic rock photography
I was originally booked to shoot Oasis in Amsterdam. They’d travelled overnight and were there to support The Verve, in early 1994. But only Noel Gallagher had made it: the rest of them had been in a ght with some Chelsea fans on the ferry journey over and when the boat got to the Hook of Holland, they were kept on and sent back to the UK. A few weeks later their label, Creation Records, who reckoned I was a good choice to shoot them because like me, they support Man City, sent them down to London. We tried quite a few places as the record company wanted a 1960s feel to the shots. So we did some outside cafes in Soho, aping that Philip Townsend style, when he was photographing the Rolling Stones around London. This shot, which is part of an exhibition taking place in the UK called Chasing The Sun: Oasis 1993 – 1997, is more my style. The band has really got behind the exhibition – Noel was instrumental in choosing a lot of the photographs on display. We took this one in an alleyway in a narrow street by the Phoenix Theatre, off Charring Cross Road. It’s called Flitcroft Street and we did that because Man City had a player called Garry Flitcroft. It amused us and we thought no one else would ever know. When their debut album De nitely Maybe came out, we were excited about it. It was the rst band in a while with swagger. In Liam, Oasis had a good- looking front bloke and that made a difference. By the time What’s The Story ( Morning Glory) came out in 1995, we were living in Oasis world. All you heard was Oasis. It was incredible.