Oasis (partially found footage of Finsbury Park performances of British rock band; 2002)

Poster for the gigs

Status: Partially Found

Oasis was a British rock band that was active from 1991 to 2009 and was first formed with the line-up of Liam Gallagher on vocals, Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs on lead guitar, Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan on bass and Tony McCarroll on drums. Liam's brother Noel Gallagher joined a year after they formed and played lead guitar while Paul Arthurs switched to rhythm guitar. The band was a huge success throughout the 1990s with their first three albums "Definitely Maybe", "(What's The Story) Morning Glory?" and "Be Here Now" debuting at Number 1 on the UK albums chart and are known for songs like Supersonic, Stand By Me, Live Forever, Don't Look Back in Anger, Rock N' Roll Star, Roll With It and Wonderwall. Despite their declining popularity at the turn of the millennium, their musical output continued to top the UK Charts and their live shows were still selling out^[1], this was evident during their tour to promote their fifth album Heathen Chemistry in 2002 and their headlining gigs at Finsbury Park is a highlight of that tour.

History

Prior to the tour's warm-up gigs (which included a headlining slot at that year's Coachella festival), the band had a bit of a setback when the yet-to-be-released Heathen Chemistry album was leaked on the internet^[2] just three weeks before their gig at The Joint in Las Vegas and the band found out the album was leaked when the audience at the April 26th gig at The Joint were singing the lyrics to the yet-to-be-released songs^[3] (which were debuted at the gig after being played during their 10 Years Of Noise & Confusion Tour in the UK). It wouldn't be until December 2003 when they found out that their drummer Alan White had a copy of the album and it ended up in the hands of an unidentified NME reporter, White would be fired the next month before the recording of their next album Don't Believe The Truth began^[4], making the Heathen Chemistry album and subsequent tour his final with the band.

The gigs at Finsbury Park were originally for July 5th and 6th, but the tickets for those gigs sold out within two hours of going on sale on March 2nd^[5] and another night on July 7th was added^[6], which also sold out quickly. The band was offered to play Glastonbury that year but turn it down to play the Finsbury Park gigs which included The Charlatans, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Coral and Proud Mary. Despite bad weather during the July 5th gig, the trio of gigs were a huge success and by the time the July 7th gig came along, Heathen Chemistry landed at Number 1 on the UK Charts^[7]. While the tour would also include other festival appearances like T In The Park^[8] and Gurten Festival^[9] and the last six gigs of the tour getting postponed into March 2003 due to brawl in a Munich nightclub involving Liam and Alan, the Finsbury Park gigs remains a highlight of the troubled tour and is a favorite among fans.

Availability

Bootleg audio recordings of the gigs have circulated online over the years and among the bootlegs is an XFM broadcast of the July 7th gig. The recording is currently the highest quality recording of any of the gigs to have surfaced in full. A video for the July 7th performance of Little By Little was released on the DVD Single of Little By Little and features a lot of clips from the three gigs, it would later be released on disc 3 of the compilation album "Time Flies... 1994-2009" in 2010 along with other music videos from the band's career. The audio of that performance of Little By Little would be released on the Don't Believe The Truth bonus CD by the Daily Mirror in 2005. As of right now, the previously mentioned music video is currently all the footage from the Finsbury park gigs that is available.