Homecoming heroes Oasis were forced to abandon the stage twice at the opening show of their enormous UK tour.
Having promised so much, Oasis’ grand opening of their UK tour spluttered to a halt last night (June 4th) with the band retreating from the stage twice due to technical difficulties, amid a hail of boos and cat calls from the crowd.
Oasis announced a huge UK jaunt earlier this year. The Manchester legends are due to play to their biggest audiences since their iconic shows at Knebworth over ten years ago. Bringing along a cast of hugely popular indie acts as support, tickets for the dates sold out in record time.
However almost immediately the tour ran into problems. Support act The Enemy gave an interview which Oasis singer Liam Gallagher took as a personal slight, prompting a foul mouthed Twitter tirade.
Forced into an apology, there was more bad news for The Enemy yesterday. Singer Tom Clarke has fallen ill with chronic food poisoning, meaning that the indie gurus were forced to pull out of the opening date of the tour.
Taking place in Manchester’s Heaton Park, the enormous homecoming show was the first of a three night stint in the northern city. Causing massive logistic problems, Oasis were warned by electoral bodies that the volume of people travelling around Manchester could cause problems with voter turn out in the European elections.
In the end, though, the show didn’t run as expected. The band were forced to leave the stage during their opening song due to problems with the generators. After re-emerging the group then left the stage yet again before returning to play a full live set.
Oasis declared from the stage that they would give the 70,000 fans in attendance a full refund.
After support slots from Twisted Wheel, Reverend & The Makers and Kasabian Oasis took the stage and rampaged through ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Star’. Or at least that was the intention. Amidst growing crowd uncertainty engineers worked quickly to sort out the faults, with the band soon returning to the stage.
“Really sorry about that,” Liam Gallagher told the crowd. “This is a free gig now. Everyone will get a refund.”
Later in the set Noel Gallagher admitted “we’re not sure how its gonna work with getting the money back,” he said before playing ‘Half The World’. “Be on a website or summat. We’re not getting paid for this so buy a t-shirt on the way out. Credit crunch and that, keep my kids in sweets.
“If you’re getting your mum and dad to pick you up outside afterwards, tell we’re not leaving til 2am. Kind of regret offering you your money back now. Apply for it back if you wanna be a cunt, we do our best for you.”
Oasis stretched past their curfew, finishing with their now traditional cover of ‘I Am The Walrus’ at 11.20pm.
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UPDATE
Liam Gallagher has apologised to fans for last night’s technical difficulties. Writing on the social networking site Twitter the frontman said “on behalf of Oasis, I’d like to give my sincere apologies to the fans about tonight’s gig,” he wrote.
“Thanks for sticking with us, live forever…”
Oasis are set to play Manchester’s Heaton Park again on June 6th before returning for a final show on June 7th.