Ahead of the opening night, Noel recalled: “I remember sitting behind the stage … taking the moment in. They had been saying, ‘You can't play outdoors in Manchester in April, it'll rain!’… ‘It (expletive) rains in August! … Well, wear a coat!”
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The Gallaghers could finally say they had played at Maine Road, with guitars instead of boots, but the rush was no less as the brothers faced out to the North Stand, with a packed Kippax to their right and a full Main Stand to their left.
It was a had to be there moment, as was the second night which was equally memorable.
Liam, all swagger and attitude, Noel, effortlessly cool on his union jack guitar and his always stylish Manc attire that, the NME reported, “Even Noel’s Penfield cagoule became iconic following the gigs. The clothing brand recently reissued the jackets as part of their 40th birthday celebrations, saying they were “made uniquely recognisable by Noel Gallagher in the 1990’s”. Vogue, meanwhile, credited Noel’s attire at Maine Road with “elevating the anorak from trainspotting mundanity to the realm of streetwear cool.”
A particularly iconic moment came during Live Forever, when led portraits of legends like John Lennon, Sid Vicious, and Elvis played on the big screen, seeming to catch even Liam off guard while electrifying the crowd.
The band signed off their Maine Road gigs with what would prove to be a rare encore – a cover of Slade’s 1973 classic Cum On Feel The Noize.
In 2017, Liam opined: “To play at the ground of the football club you’ve supported all your life is without doubt the icing on the cake. It’s downhill after that even Knebworth doesn’t come close.”
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After the band’s brief tenure ended, the stage was deconstructed and there seemed to have been some minor pitch subsidence due to the weight of the temporary construction as well as thousands of fans that had jumped up and down to almost every track played over two nights.
Oasis were probably never better. City, however, would lose top flight status a week after the final Sunday night gig, drawing 2-2 with Liverpool when a victory was needed.
If ever there was a ‘Typical City’ moment, this was it, as the biggest rock band in the world soared, the Blues were about to embark on a journey to English football’s third tier while across the city, Sir Alex Ferguson’s Reds were celebrating another Premier League title. The lot of a Manchester City fan back then was rarely dull.
Noel would be asked in 2006, three years before the then intensely bickering Burnage brothers would finally call it a day, what his career high was.
He replied: "I guess, it is playing at Maine Road in Manchester because it was the ground of the football team I’ve supported since I was a child. It was the first stadium we played, and it was amazing. It was where we all used to go as kids, It looked like a big front room, except there were 42,000 people in it.
“We always signed on about a year before we were walking out into football stadiums that I’d grown up in. They were really great gigs. The Knebworth one was the biggest, but those Maine Road shows — that’s it. That’s what Oasis was at that time. I had seen Pink Floyd playing there, and I’d seen Guns N’ Roses, and now I was playing there. It was a bit mad.”
A decade later, Bonehead concurred: "Maine Road was where we all used to go. So I was standing there, trying to make sure I never forgot this moment. And now I can’t remember a thing about it, and yet I stood there for an hour and a half.”
Remarkably, Liam, only 25 at the time, was the subject of a kidnapping threat that the police treated seriously. Bonehead added: “You always have security knocking about, but at Maine Road we had security with Doberman’s and Rottweiler dogs. We were like, ‘What the…?!’ and someone said ‘Yeah, there was a serious threat that they were gonna kidnap Liam, so – extra security.’”
The Maine Road Oasis concerts were a huge moment in the history of the Manchester music scene, the Gallaghers and Manchester City.
And the reaction of anyone Mancs lucky enough to have witnessed them? ‘They were mad fer it!’
Words: David Clayton****Photographs: Kevin Cummins/Getty
Full Setlist & Stage Moments (night #1)
The full setlist for the first night, as captured by Setlist.fm, included:
The Swamp Song, Acquiesce, Supersonic, Hello, Some Might Say, Roll With It, Morning Glory, Round Are Way (with Up In The Sky outro), Cigarettes & Alcohol, Champagne Supernova, Whatever (ending with All The Young Dudes), Cast No Shadow, Wonderwall, The Masterplan (tour debut), Don't Look Back in Anger, Live Forever, D'Yer Wanna Be a Spaceman? (aborted), and I Am the Walrus, with an encore of Cum On Feel the Noize by Slade.