"Have you spoken to Our Kid yet?" Liam asks,
when we meet by chance on the Via Tommaso Grossi. "Sorted your little
differences out? You're like a pair of old f**king women arguing over
knickers."
Later that day, Noel has at least calmed down enough to
talk. It seems our last Q interview, May 2002, was cited in a court case with
his ex-wife Meg Matthews. My face is therefore associated with post-marital
angst, noughts on an alimony cheque and general psychic pain.
We meet in a café and he is charm personified. On his
leather jacket a La's badge and another saying "Mach Shau!"(a German
exhortation to "make a show!" dating from The Beatles in the
Kaiserkeller, he says) signal a quaint fan-dom. Frankly, it's hard to reconcile
this engaging personality with the angry "walker". Belligerent and profane on the page, he's far more
sensitive then you imagine. When he laughs, his eyes disappear into appealing
slits.
Is Liam really religious?
Noel Gallagher: I think he's shit-scared of religion. I
think he throws his chips in with the Lord occasionally just in case there's
some truth in it. But I f**king ask you: is head-butting your own fans
religious? Is rolling around looking for your two front teeth after they've
been kicked in by a bunch of f**king estate agents religious?
"You found your gun in a paper bag/You get your
history from the Union Jack." Mucky Fingers sounds like protest music.
Have you found your social conscience?
NG: Chris Martin asked me to do a Fair Trade gig, which
was fair enough, but I don't really believe that guys with guitars change a
thing. It's all bollocks. To me Americanism is too big, too evil. Mucky Fingers
was about Blair and Iraq but I've not got Bono's belief or Chris' believe that
musicians change things.
Does this sound familiar? You were swept to power in a
blaze of glory in the mid-'90s. After the triumphalism, there were some
unfulfilled promises and many reshuffles. Now there's a power struggle between
the two main men at the top...
NG: Gem Archer is Gordon Brown, if that's what you're
asking. He's the man who pulls all the strings.
OUR INTERVIEW IS cut short by the publicist. The Alcatraz
sound check awaits. Noel agrees we will resume our chat later. At the show,
Wonderwall is back. From the stage, Liam tells the young Milanese they have a
nice cathedral, which he has visited. Afterwards Noel is pissed off. He's
unhappy with the performance, and his throat hurts. A doctor is sent for.
Backstage, Olivia Harrison, widow of George, and Carol
Capaldi, the widow of Traffic drummer Jim, come to say hello. Noel doesn't
recognise them. When introduced, he asks how Jim Capaldi is. He died in January
of this year.
"I made a bit of a c**t of myself there," he
concedes dourly later. He doesn't want to be interviewed. We'll talk back in
London.
Which makes the rest of the night all the more bizarre.
An hour later I am sitting in the bar of the Park Hyatt hotel with Oasis
manager Marcus Russell. Like the Wizard Of Oz, the man behind the Gallaghers is
massively understated: a soft-spoken, genial Welshman. With sighs of delight he
describes a recent walking holiday in Umbria. Doing this job, he says, it's
important sometimes to go where you won't see another human being all day.
And then, as if on cue, they arrive, Liam draped in a
towel like a post-fight boxer, Noel laughing his head off. It's clear alcohol
has already been consumed and that further drinking and piss-taking are on the
agenda. Liam takes a stall next to me and claims he has put a word in. Things
will be cool he says. Noel needs to stop being "an arse". I need to
be "a geezer". He seals this by pinching the fat on my cheek.
But he's right. A drunk Noel Gallagher ambles over. An
arm goes round my shoulder. We start to discuss the merits of Don't Believe The
Truth as an album title. Intended on a comment on what Noel sees as the media's
unreliable reporting of the Iraq war, I suggest that unless "the
truth" is in quotes or the album is called "I'm not 'avin the
media", the title sounds daft.
"What kind of f**king student are you?" asks
Liam.
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