“There’s a palpable buzz in the city”: the view from Manchester on the return of Oasis
At 12:30pm on August 27, Pete Howard arrived to open Sifters Records to find the world’s media and diehard Oasis fans camped outside following the official announcement of the band’s anticipated reunion. The second-hand record emporium is located in Burnage – a mere stone’s throw away from where Noel and Liam Gallagher grew up – and is immortalised in the track ‘Shakermaker’ with the lyrics “Mister Sifter sold me songs when I was just 16”.
Four days on, on a packed Saturday afternoon, the hoopla hasn’t subsided. Inside the shop, as Motown classics like Mary Wells’ ‘My Guy’ play through the speakers, Howard – aka Mister Sifter – explains that Noel and Liam’s rapprochement after 15 years of fraternal feuding blindsided him. “People have always asked me, ‘Do you think they’ll get back together?’ but I’ve always said it’ll be further down the line because they’re both successful solo. I thought they’d wait until that success stopped,” he says. “So it came out of the blue. It’s very exciting. There’s a real buzz in the city. You get caught up in it, don’t you?”
Although other Oasis totems have fallen by the wayside (all that remains of the Boardwalk, the Manchester city centre site of their first gig, for example, is a blue plaque), Sifters has stood proudly here since 1983. Serving a customer a faded copy of Wham!’s ‘Fantastic!’ vinyl, 76-year-old Howard says: “It’s been embarrassing because I haven’t got a lot of Oasis stuff. Being a second-hand shop, there’s not a lot of people coming down trading in a job-lot of Oasis albums in Burnage!”
Despite there being an Oasis mural around the corner of the shop, inside, there is only a smattering of posters of the hometown heroes that hint at its storied past. Instead, it remains largely unchanged since Noel and Liam used to buy the records here that would act as the building blocks of their future sound.
This week alone, fans have made reverential pilgrimages here from the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Russia. Since ‘Shakermaker’ was released in 1994 (“When the namecheck happened, it was exciting and I was honoured, but unfortunately it was a bit of an average song,” he reflects), Howard has become accustomed to signing autographs as “Mr Sifter” and fielding questions about the group. Today, one asks if they ever fought in the shop. “They never argued in here ‘cause they never came in as a duo,” he responds. “They did all their fighting in hotel rooms – usually just before the release of an album!” he chuckles. “They might have lost their front teeth in the process, but it was good promotion!”
Did he know they’d go supernova? “Noel was driven and steeped in music. He wouldn’t take any banter about the band, and because of that, I did think, ‘There’s something about these lads’. They had the whole package. But I can’t believe I’m still answering questions about them 30 years on. Whenever people would ask me, ‘What records were they buying?’ I used to make the answers up!”
Browsing the racks today, 29-year-old Oasis enthusiast and Manchester-based sports writer Razz Ashraf remembers how he had set his alarm for 7:30am for the momentous August 27 announcement that signalled an end to the brothers’ Cain-and-Abel-with-parkas bickering, so that he could pay a commemorative visit to the shuttered Sifters before work.
“All I wanted to do was come down here and touch the sign and be where it all started,” he explains. “I get emotional about it. I’ve been fantasising about this moment for so many years.” His father would play Oasis around the house. “He wasn’t that big into rock, but because they were from Manchester, he could understand it. As I started connecting more to my city, they started meaning more to me.” Having been to both brothers’ solo gigs separately, he’s never seen Oasis live, and although he didn’t manage to acquire tickets, giving up on the Ticketmaster scrum earlier in the day, he’s hoping to use his contacts within the city to somehow get in.
Others proved more fortunate. Later in the evening, 21-year-old Mancunian Asha is taking a selfie in front of the painting of a classic sunglasses-clad shot of Noel and Liam to celebrate having nabbed tickets to see one of the five Heaton Park homecoming dates after eight hours of trying. “I’ve been shaking all day,” she says. “They’re part of my childhood.”
Although Manchester is a city that tends to eschew easy ‘Mad Fer It’ media narratives about what it is, there’s no question that Oasis is coded within the city’s DNA. In the wake of the Manchester bombing in 2017, it was ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ that became a symbol of the city’s defiance, unity and resilience when a crowd of Mancunians spontaneously erupted into song after a minute’s silence for the attack victims; its lyrics somehow filling the deficit when politicians’ words fell short.
As one insider who witnessed Oasis’ first gig at The Boardwalk tells NME of the city’s presence in their genetic code: “It was obvious they were going to be massive. They had everything and stood out – the swagger, the presence, that elusive spark. And the thing Manchester enjoyed was turning around and sticking two fingers up at London because their scene felt manufactured and they never quite ‘got it’. There’s no way you could replicate Oasis in London.”
On King Street in Manchester city centre lies Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green and Microdot, the gallery/store owned by famed Oasis graphic designer Brian Cannon. Behind the counter, a day after the ticketing battle, Stevie Aherne, guitarist in the band Dirty Circus, explains that there’s been an influx of customers and an uptick of sales on their website since the reunion. “The city feels different,” he says. “For me, personally, I was listening to grunge and hip-hop and all of a sudden, ‘Definitely Maybe’ came out when I was 12 years old, and that was it. That was my band then – and a hell of a lot of other people had that same epiphany.
“There’s no underestimating how important they are to Manchester. I just wish a few more of us had been successful in getting tickets,” he adds, referencing the widely-criticised Ticketmaster farrago, which left many fans feeling exploited by site errors and a controversial demand-based ‘dynamic pricing’ system. “I tried for eight and a half hours before being kicked off and accused of being a bot.”
“So did we!” pipes up a 14-year-old excitedly taking a selfie next to the fireplace from the ‘Definitely Maybe’ album cover, on loan to the shop by Oasis guitarist Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs. “My dad tried all yesterday at work!”
“As happy as we are that the reunion’s happening, I hope they put some extra dates on ‘cause there’s some disappointed people in the city,” adds Aherne.
Across the city, the Coach & Horses pub – located a mere 20-minute walk from Heaton Park, where Oasis’ blockbuster gigs will take place – became a viral focal point for fans when a new eye-catching mural of Liam and Noel appeared on its wall. Landlady Sue Hawley commissioned artist Snow Graffiti at 8am as soon as the news appeared; it took nine hours to finish and now stands proudly next to images of footballers including Colin Bell, George Best and Eric Cantona. “The attention has been crazy. We’ve had a constant stream of people popping by for selfies,” she says. “One guy took a long green coat out of the boot of his car, put on a pair of sunglasses, and stood in front of it.”
“A lot of the excitement is about nostalgia,” she surmises. “Oasis were just one of those phenomenal bands who gave us Mancunians some pride.”
Behind the bar, 22-year-old Alex has been an Oasis fan since aged 11; his first record purchase was a Beady Eye vinyl. As ‘Definitely Maybe’ booms through the boozer, he elaborates: “They’re a staple. If you’re abroad and say you’re from Manchester, people will immediately mention [football teams Manchester] City, United, or Oasis.” He woke up early on Saturday morning to procure tickets – to no avail following a five-hour wait. “Part of me thought it was a lot of money, but another part of me thought: why not? I probably won’t go pay for resale, as I’m not earning enough to justify it. I’ll be listening from outside.”
Even Oasis fan Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, didn’t manage to secure tickets. Not that it’s dampened his enthusiasm for an event that Manchester nightlife czar Sacha Lord has predicted will attract in excess of £15m into the local economy. “Oasis reforming is great news for the city region and another massive opportunity for the eyes of the world to be back on Manchester,” enthuses Burnham. “We saw this cultural boom in the 1980s and 1990s with bands like New Order, The Smiths and The Stone Roses before Oasis first burst onto the scene, bringing attention to Burnage and Greater Manchester more widely.”
“Greater Manchester is in a different moment now with a thriving economy, and Oasis returning and playing these shows in their home city will only boost this. Manchester often has a tendency to talk about past glories, of which Oasis were very much a part. But I think this is a fantastic opportunity for a new generation of Greater Mancunians to celebrate some of its most famous sons.”
“It very much feels like the city is having another big moment. I’m especially pleased for their mum, Peggy, who will get to see her sons perform live again. There has been a palpable buzz in the city since the news broke.”
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Gary Ryan
NME
